Thaindian News

London, Mar 11 (ANI): It has emerged that a Moroccan official was offered bribe to alter the birth certificate of the Moroccan-born erotic dancer at the centre of the sex scandal engulfing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

According to Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, the official was promised ‘a large amount of money’ to alter the birth certificate of Karima El Mahroug, known by her stage name as Ruby the Heart Stealer, reports the Telegraph.

The unidentified official told Il Fatto that she was approached on February 7 by three men - two Italians and a Moroccan - in her office in the town of Fkih Ben Salah in central Morocco, where Mahroug was born.

The Moroccan man asked her in Arabic if she could backdate the nightclub dancer’s birth certificate by two years.

The newspaper printed on its front page a photograph of what it said was Mahroug’s certificate, on which her date of birth is recorded as Nov 1, 1992.

That means she was 17 when, according to Milan prosecutors, she had sex with the Italian Prime Minister at his mansion in Milan between February and May last year.

Meanwhile, Berlusconi’s lawyers said the claims were ‘laughable’ but opposition parties demanded that an urgent investigation be launched into the allegations.

The 74-year-old billionaire premier will face trial on April 6 accused of paying for sex with Mahroug when she was 17 and allegedly working as a prostitute.

Having sex with a prostitute who is under the age of 18 is a crime in Italy, which carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. (ANI)