Newsgroup: it.politica.pds
Titolo: L'Independent, il Sultano, la farsa e l'abuso d'uffcio

The man seen as the Italian right's leader-in-waiting has called on
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to quit, should he fail to refute
allegations that he abused his power to keep the lid on yet another
sex scandal.
Parliamentary speaker Gianfranco Fini finally weighed in to the
political storm that has raged since claims emerged that the
74-year-old pressured police into releasing a 17-year-old Moroccan lap
dancer accused of theft.
Mr Berlusconi is no stranger to being caught – politically speaking –
with his trousers down. But in addition to the familiar elements of a
French sex farce, he has now been accused of abusing the power of his
office, which is a criminal offence in Italy.
Reports suggest the mogul premier put pressure on Milan police to
quietly release Karima Keyek, who is known as Ruby, on 27 May this
year.
The two had met when she attended a Valentine's Day party at the Prime
Minister's mansion. Italian newspapers have printed transcripts
suggesting Milan police were falsely told that the girl, who had been
accused of stealing €3,000, was the granddaughter of Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak.
Speaking in front of a TV audience, parliamentary speaker Mr Fini
said: "If the allegations are confirmed, the Prime Minister should
step down.
"If there was that intervention [by the Prime Minister and his office]
and if it's true that it was claimed that the girl was the relative of
a head of state, then it would indicate a nonchalance; a corruption
symptomatic of the use of state office for private gain."
On the night in question, the teenager was eventually released into
the custody of Berlusconi aid Nicole Minette, apparently in line with
a request by the Premier's office, which called police HQ an hour
after the PM's intervention.
Yesterday it emerged that the Milan prosecuting magistrate overseeing
juvenile cases, Annamaria Fiorillo, said she had never given
permission for Ruby to be released and had not been aware that she had
been freed until two months later. The Interior Minister Roberto
Maroni insisted that the police had acted correctly in releasing the
girl, who celebrated her 18th birthday at the weekend in the company
of C-list celebrities in Genova, where she is reportedly staying with
a porn film director. But even Northern League leader Umberto Bossi,
Mr Berlusconi's most powerful coalition ally, has publicly criticised
the Prime Minister for making the personal phone call to the Milan
police station.
The Italian newspapers are also continuing to demand answers. Corriere
della Sera listed what it described as six unresolved questions
regarding Mr Berlusconi's version of events. Chief among them was the
suggestion that the Prime Minister had lied about the girl's
parentage; the police's disputed claim that there were no secure care
home places available that night and whether police had acted
correctly in releasing her without the magistrate's say-so. The
centre-left La Repubblica has suggested the Premier sought the
teenager's release to avoid her spilling the beans on her
participation in one of his notorious parties.
But Mr Berlusconi yesterday insisted he had done nothing wrong. "My
resignation would cause serious damage to the centre-right and to all
whole country," he said, as opposition MPs and the public insisted he
was making Italy an international laughing stock.
[Michael Day, "Old ally leads calls for Berlusconi's head over teen
stripper scandal", The Independent, Tuesday, 2 November 2010] 


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