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Bunga-bunga’s back: new trial looms for Berlusconi

Scandal-hit Italian former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is to go on trial for allegedly paying a witness to give false testimony about his notorious parties.

Published: 16 November 2018 15:01 CET

Bunga-bunga's back: new trial looms for Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi speaks on the set of the broadcast "Porta a Porta", a programme of Italian channel Rai 1, on January 11th, 2018. Photo: AFP

A judge in southern city Bari on Friday set the first hearing in the witness tampering trial for February 4, 2019.

The case dates back to 2008-2009 when young and ambitious businessman Giampolo Tarantini brought escort girls to parties at Berlusconi's residences in Rome and Sardini

Tarantini is currently appealing an eight-year sentence for procuring prostitutes for Berlusconi.

The billionaire former premier is accused of having paid Tarantini to keep quiet about the more salacious details of his parties.

READ ALSO: Silvio Berlusconi: Italy's eternal comeback king

Prosecutors say that Berlusconi provided Tarantini with “hundreds of thousands of euros, legal assistance and a job” so that he would lie in court.

Berlusconi is already being investigated or prosecuted for witness tampering in Milan, Sienna, Rome and Turin, each time for allegedly paying people to keep quiet about his so-called 'bunga-bunga' parties.

The media magnate has never denied making the payments, but said they were to help “somebody or a family with children that was in serious financial difficulty”.

“We are confident that after the trial opens Mr Berlusconi will quickly be acquitted,” Berlusconi's lawyer Nicolo Ghedini was quoted as telling the Repubblica newspaper.

Berlusconi was ousted in November 2011 following a parliamentary revolt against his increasingly scandal-tainted rule and a wave of panic on the financial markets that pushed Italy to the brink of default.

READ ALSO: Italy court lifts ban on Berlusconi running for public office

Protesters gather in Milan as Italy limits same-sex parents' rights

“You explain to my son that I’m not his mother,” read one sign held up amid a sea of rainbow flags that filled the northern city’s central Scala Square.

Italy legalised same-sex civil unions in 2016, but opposition from the Catholic Church meant it stopped short of granting gay couples the right to adopt.

Decisions have instead been made on a case-by-case basis by the courts as parents take legal action, although some local authorities decided to act unilaterally.

Milan’s city hall had been recognising children of same-sex couples conceived overseas through surrogacy, which is illegal in Italy, or medically assisted reproduction, which is only available for heterosexual couples.

But its centre-left mayor Beppe Sala revealed earlier this week that this had stopped after the interior ministry sent a letter insisting that the courts must decide.

READ ALSO: Milan stops recognising children born to same-sex couples

“It is an obvious step backwards from a political and social point of view, and I put myself in the shoes of those parents who thought they could count on this possibility in Milan,” he said in a podcast, vowing to fight the change.

Milan’s mayor Giuseppe Sala has assured residents that he will fight to have the new government directive overturned. Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Fabrizio Marrazzo of the Gay Party said about 20 children are waiting to be registered in Milan, condemning the change as “unjust and discriminatory”.

A mother or father who is not legally recognised as their child’s parent can face huge bureaucratic problems, with the risk of losing the child if the registered parent dies or the couple’s relationship breaks down.

Elly Schlein, newly elected leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, was among opposition politicians who attended the protest on Saturday, where many campaigners railed against the new government.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party came top in the September elections, puts a strong emphasis on traditional family values.

“Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby!” she said in a speech last year before her election at the head of a right-wing coalition that includes Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration League.

Earlier this week, a Senate committee voted against an EU plan to oblige member states to recognise the rights of same-sex parents granted elsewhere in the bloc.

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