Thaindian News

London, Jan 23 (IANS) Despite his alleged sex parties involving a teenager and other prostitutes, Italians will forgive Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi as they are “proud” of their 74-year-old leader who has “a good sex life”, a porn star has said.Rocco Siffredi, 46, who was named by an adult film industry listing as one of the world’s 50 top porn stars and is now appearing on Italian chat shows, said: “Italians are proud of someone like Berlusconi who is 74, loves sex and has a good sex life - and I don’t just mean working-class Italians.”

“In any other country he would have been forced out years ago, but here he gets away with it,” Siffredi was quoted as saying by British daily the Guardian.

He said if Berlusconi can avoid jail for allegedly paying a teenager for sex and pressuring the police into covering it up, he will be forgiven by Italian voters.

Following Berlusconi’s refusal to submit to questioning, Milan magistrates will now request he stand trial before the summer without a pre-trial hearing. His lawyers are expected to try to halt the trial by arguing that it should be handled by a special tribunal for politicians.

Two years ago Berlusconi’s wife left him over his friendship with teenager Noemi Letizia, and a prostitute, Patrizia D’Addario, who claimed to have slept with him.

Now Berlusconi is again facing accusations that he had sex with pole-dancing prostitutes at parties at his mansion near Milan. One guest, Nadia Macrì, described Berlusconi lying on a bed calling out “next” as women queued to have sex with him.

Berlusconi’s troubles deepened Saturday when one of the women named in the investigation admitted that she had sex with him.

Maria Ester Garcia Polanco, 25, denied that she did so in exchange for money but her admission makes her the first of the so-called “bunga bunga” girls - a group of 14 women whom Milan prosecutors allege played striptease games and had sex with the prime minister - to state publicly that she slept with him.

Polanco told La Repubblica she did so out of gratitude because he had paid for urgent medical treatment for her five-year-old daughter and had helped her find work as a television showgirl.

Prosecutors are also investigating allegations that Berlusconi paid to sleep with Moroccan nightclub dancer Karima el-Mahroug when she was 17. It has also been alleged that Berlusconi pressured police to free her when she was later arrested on suspicion of theft.

On Thursday, in a statement referring to Berlusconi’s alleged scandal, the Vatican demanded “a more robust morality and sense of legality” from Italy’s rulers.

Opposition leader Pierluigi Bersani has vowed to collect 10 million signatures calling for Berlusconi to step down.

Siffredi, who crossed paths with Mahroug on a talk show Tuesday, said he suspected that Berlusconi would not worry too much about a girl’s real age if she looked over 20.

He described Berlusconi as a sex addict. “I have sex one half of a half of a half of the times he does,” he said in a Facebook video. By mixing power with sex, he added, “by doing to whoever you want what you want”, Berlusconi was living out his own fantasies.

That approach, he added, would not lose him votes in Italy. “Just as my appeal is based on being a family man off the set, Berlusconi understands that being a family man is important, as is staying on the right side of the church,” he said.