Italy: Berlusconi guilty of ‘bunga bunga’

“It was a good day for the constitution,” said Antonio Padellaro in Il Fatto Quotidiano. A three-judge panel in Milan has found former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi guilty of abuse of office and patronizing an underage prostitute. The court sentenced him to seven years in prison and banned him from holding public office for life. It’s only fitting that the former nightclub crooner who became the nation’s richest media tycoon has been brought low by his immense sense of entitlement. Over a two-year trial, Italians learned “that this Botoxed, conceited man” held “bunga bunga” sex parties in his villa, “tragicomic theatrics featuring Amazon women” doing stripteases, lap dances, and more.

How did we ever come to this? asked Ezio Mauro in La Repubblica. “How could this unfortunate country for the past 20 years fall under the shadow of an immensely powerful, out-of-control egomaniac?” Berlusconi’s criminal behavior was clear: He had sex with Moroccan-born pole dancer Karima El Mahroug, aka Ruby the Heartstealer, when she was only 17. And he later tried to intervene in police business after she was arrested for shoplifting by falsely claiming that Ruby was a niece of then Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, and that her detention would “cause an international incident.” The defense claimed that Berlusconi’s crimes were “victimless” and that what was being criminalized was the prime minister’s lifestyle. But it’s a measure of how far Italy has sunk that we must even argue these points. “In any other country, the prime minister would have had to resign” as soon as the allegations became public.

Berlusconi, though, has long commanded the adoration of half the country, said Pierluigi Battista in Corriere della Sera. For two decades, Italian politics has been split “between those who would demonize him and those who would sanctify him.” This ruling won’t change that. In fact, because the judges gave a harsher sentence than the prosecutors were seeking, the rift will only deepen. More than ever, Italians see Berlusconi either “as a sinister figure to be thrown into the abyss of shame and ignominy or as the persecuted victim of an aggressively partisan judiciary.”

He’s obviously the latter, said Massimo Gagliardi in La Nazione. The Milanese judges “confirmed their bias” by slapping him with that gratuitous lifetime ban on political office. Berlusconi called that “an outrageous violence intended to eliminate me from political life,” and it’s hard to disagree. But their attempt to bury him will backfire. “Instead of being eliminated, he is emerging extraordinarily strengthened.” Berlusconi isn’t going to jail anytime soon, said Stefano Folli in Il Sole 24 Ore. He can appeal the verdict twice, and his lawyers have had plenty of practice in dragging out his appeals. And frankly, despite his many sins, jail isn’t the place for him. This old fighter took nearly 30 percent of the vote in February’s election, and the electorate is invested in him. Simply to “delete him by a fiat of the courts would have a destabilizing effect on our democracy.”