London: Adding to woes of Italian premier
Silvio Berlusconi facing trial on charges of paying for sex
with a teenager, new audiotapes of his supposed dalliance with
a high-end prostitute at his Rome residence have surfaced.
"I`m going to take a shower too. If you finish before
me, wait for me on the big bed," a man purported to be the
Italian Prime Minister can be heard saying in the audiotapes
posted online by Italian newspaper La Repubblica and weekly
magazine L`Espresso
"Which bed? Putin`s?" enquires his companion, show-girl
Patrizia D`Addario. "Oh, how cute, the one with the curtains."
The reason why the bed is named after the Russian
Prime Minister remains a mystery. But the audiotapes offer a
tantalising glimpse into how Berlusconi reportedly spent the
night of November 4, 2008, when the world was eagerly waiting
to see whether Barack Obama would become the first black
President of the US, the Independent Online reported.
According to the transcripts of the tapes, Berlusconi
phoned D`Addario the day after their assignation on the Putin
bed.
He marvels at how he has got through a busy day, despite
the lack of sleep, while D`Addario tells him she`s lost her
voice.
Berlusconi`s lawyer Niccolo Ghedini, however, was quick
to dispute the veracity of the tapes and dismissed them as
being "without any merit, completely improbable and the
product of the imagination".
The 74-year-old Italian leader has been dogged by sex
scandals since his wife announced in May last year that she
was divorcing him, tipped over the edge by his presence at the
18th birthday party of an aspiring model.
Next came a flurry of pictures of naked people cavorting
at his Sardinian villa, and then details of his alleged
dealings with escort girls emerged during a probe into
supposed prostitution rackets in the southern city of Bari.
According to prosecutors, Berlusconi paid for sex with
Moroccan teen Karima El Mahroug 13 times last year, when she
was 17, at his villa near Milan.
It is also alleged that he then tried to cover up the
alleged crime by abusing power.
The billionaire tycoon turned politician has a long
history of legal entanglements dating back to when he first
entered politics in the early 1990s but has always either been
exonerated or seen his trials expire.
Last month Berlusconi attended a court hearing for the
first time in eight years for a separate fraud investigation
linked to his company Mediatrade. Judges have not yet decided
whether that case should go to trial.
He is currently defending himself in the trial on charges
of paying for sex with the underage prostitute.
PTI
