ERIC REGULY
Rome— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
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Mr. Berlusconi, 74, was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on charges that he paid for sex with an underage prostitute and then abused his power by convincing the Milan police to spring her from detention in an unrelated theft charge. The second charge is far more serious, with a potential penalty of 12 years in prison (the prostitution charge would carry a three-year sentence).
Mr. Berlusconi and the girl, a Moroccan dancer named Karima el Mahroug – stage name Ruby Rubacuori (Ruby the Heart Stealer) – deny having sex with each other. But Ms. Mahroug, who was 17 at the time the alleged offence took place, admits she accepted a “gift” of about €7,000 from the Prime Minister. Under Italian law, the age of consent is 14, but it is illegal to pay for sex from a prostitute who is under 18.
The case could prove fatal to Mr. Berlusconi's career for both legal and political reasons. “There is a feeling of an end game here,” said James Walston, a political commentator and international relations professor at the American University of Rome.
Judge Cristina di Censo ordered a fast-tracked trial after accepting the prosecutors' claims of the “obviousness of the evidence” against Mr. Berlusconi, giving him little time to prepare a defence or exploit legal manoeuvring to try to delay or kill the trial. The evidence given to the judge ran to almost 800 pages and is said to include witness statements and wiretap transcripts that suggest Mr. Berlusconi's parties in his villa near Milan were often debauched affairs, brimming with prostitutes.
The political reasons centre on timing. Mr. Berlusconi is sinking in the polls after barely winning a confidence vote in Parliament in December. The next set of polls might show him incapable of winning an election.
His popularity among women voters is no doubt sinking fast. Judge di Censo's trial order came only two days after hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets across Italy to call for Mr. Berlusconi's resignation. Millions of Italians are annoyed and embarrassed by what they see as Berlusconi-inspired sexism.
The Prime Minister is also Italy's most powerful media magnate and his commercial broadcasters endlessly promote programs featuring scantily clad women. Italy has been called “the land that feminism forgot” by Tobias Wolf, author of The Dark Heart of Italy.
A few commentators think there is an off chance that Mr. Berlusconi, who is not required to attend the trial, will be so embarrassed by the evidence against him that he will stand down. “A lot of women will be brought in to testify and things could get out of hand,” said Franco Pavoncello, president of Rome's John Cabot University. “Berlusconi might just relent.”
What seems more likely to threaten Mr. Berlusconi's career is the possible exodus of the Northern League party from his centre-right ruling coalition. The xenophobic and increasingly popular party, led by Umberto Bossi, has hinted that its allegiance to Mr. Berlusconi is no longer solid. “If the Northern League pulls out, there will be an election,” Mr. Walston said. “I think there will be an one fairly soon.”
The Democratic Party, which is the main opposition party, urged Mr. Berlusconi to resign on Tuesday. Opposition politicians said the prime minister was an embarrassment who was turning their country into an international “laughing stock.”
Mr. Berlusconi, for his part, has compared the attacks against him to a left-wing conspiracy. He has accused the probe into his personal life to the manhunts by East Germany's Stasi secret police, because of the investigators' use of wiretaps. In an interview published last week in a newspaper controlled by the Berlusconi family, the Prime Minister said “there is an anti-democratic plan to get rid of me without a vote. It is managed by spying prosecutors followed by a crowd of Jacobins.”
Piersilvio Cipolotti, a lawyer for Mr. Berlusconi, said there is no evidence that his client had sexual relations with Ms. Mahroug and that his phone call last year to the police station where Ms. Mahroug was detained was “friendly.” Mr. Berlusconi has said he was led to believe the teenager was the granddaughter of Hosni Mubarak, then Egypt's president, and that he helped her simply to avoid a diplomatic incident.
Mr. Cipolotti said he planned to file a motion to have the trial moved to a special tribunal for government officials, which Mr. Berlusconi's legal counsel considers impartial. In the trial that starts in April, three female judges will decide his fate.