Naughty nurses and bunga bunga: italy finally loses patience with berlusconi

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public prosecutor's office in Milan is housed in a massive, forbidding building from the Mussolini era not far from the city's world-famous Duomo cathedral. The Latin word

"IUSTITIA," or "justice," is inscribed in huge letters above the main entrance. Behind this building's gun-slit-like windows lies the conscience of the nation, the

other Italy. Milan's prosecutors have spent the last six months investigating a case newspapers have dubbed "Rubygate." They have been digging through interrogations and

recorded telephone conversations of people who attended parties at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's villa in Arcore, outside Milan. Their work has yielded a 389-page dossier, which

was submitted to parliament in Rome last week. It is now up to an investigative committee to determine whether additional searches of the premier's private property can be conducted.

Berlusconi himself has been summoned to appear for questioning in Milan and was given his choice of three dates. This time around, things are not looking good for the Italian prime minister.

'THE OLD GUY' WITH THE MONEY The once-secret dossier is no longer secret. In fact, all of Italy is familiar with it, thanks to the fresh and increasingly sordid details the papers

are revealing each day. Indeed, with each passing day, it seems like the prime minister is being pulled farther and farther off his pedestal. The image of the virile, omnipotent ruler, of

the hedonist who loves women, is beginning to crumble. One reason behind this shift is that many of the girls caught in wiretapped telephone conversations speak in such contemptuous terms

about the man who has fascinated Italians for so long. This fascination was born from the fact that Berlusconi could run the country while at the same time being a little like them:

gullible, fallible and a _macchietta_, a somewhat strange, grotesque figure distinguished only by his absolute mediocrity. But as one of the party girls said in a conversation recorded by

the prosecutor's office: "He's become old, fat and ugly -- but generous." "It's unimaginable, the things that happen there," another girl says, referring

to the many parties at Berlusconi's villa. "It's a real whorehouse." "The old guy is really getting on my nerves. I think I'm going to kill him soon," says

yet another girl. "What on earth will I do if he ever resigns?," asks Karima El Mahroug, the nightclub dancer who also goes by the name "Ruby" and was still underage

when she allegedly visited the prime minister eight times at his villa. "Then I'll have nothing left to bite." The files also contain snippets of conversations such as the

following: "You're supposed to be the official nurse." "Ha-ha. That's what he told me, too." "Have fun with him. You have to bring along a fake blood

pressure monitor and a white coat." "The kind doctors wear. And don't wear anything underneath, of course!" "And then you say to him: 'I'm the nurse, and I

have to examine you ...' You know how much he likes things like that." BUNGA-BUNGA PARTIES These files depict the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi, a dirty old man who seems to have

lost his connection to reality, holds court in his villa near Milan, apparently gives fetish parties -- and prefers groping to governing. The women who are now causing Berlusconi so much

trouble are the products of his media empire. And he himself has become a prisoner of the kind of cheap soap operas he has been churning out for years. There were apparently more than 20

women involved: television starlets and nightclub dancers -- all of them rather young, money-hungry and raunchy. In the wiretapped conversations, they describe so-called

"bunga-bunga" parties in the basement of the Berlusconi villa, where they were told to put on special outfits kept in a closet, such as nurse or police uniforms, and had to perform

pole dances in front of the prime minister's golden throne while being ogled and groped. ITALIAN STALLION Their descriptions reflect the swamp Italy is currently wallowing in.

What's more, they epitomize a country that has gotten used to having a prime minister suspected of tax evasion, a man who bribed an attorney and a person who, in the words of the

popular commentator Sergio Benvenuto, has "behaved like a whoremonger" for years. All of a sudden, this same Italy is reeling with shock at what allegedly transpired in

Berlusconi's house. Italian President Giorgio Napoletano demanded an immediate investigation into the Berlusconi affair, the left-wing opposition collected 10 million signatures

"to send Berlusconi home," and even the Vatican -- normally no enemy of the prime minister -- sharply condemned him. While Pope Benedict XVI complained of a "certain weakening

of public morals," his right-hand man, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, was more direct, calling for a "more robust morality, a sense of justice and legality."

Berlusconi replied from his villa in Arcore, the scene of the scandal, with a video message to the people. He sat in front of the camera, looking as pallid as a corpse, no longer able to

conjure up his perma-grin smile, his face frozen into a mask. Pictures of smiling family members in silver frames lined the bookshelf behind him, and next to him was a statue of a rearing

stallion. Not a single detail or gesture was random. Berlusconi raged against what he called a conspiracy by the left-wing judiciary and insisted on his right to privacy. Then he made a

fist, as if to hammer home that there was nothing to the accusations. "I have a steady girlfriend," he said, adding that she would never allow such absurd things to take place --

as if having a girlfriend somehow proves an Italian doesn't cheat on his wife. A COUNTRY IN A STATE OF SHOCK In a few weeks, Italy will celebrate its 150th anniversary. On March 17,

1861, Vittorio Emanuele II was crowned king of Italy. But if Garibaldi's troops invaded Italy today, they would encounter a country in a state of shock and sharply divided -- between

north and south, and between those who find their prime minister amusing and those who find him a disgrace. Still, there is some cause for hope. A day before the investigations were

announced, Italy's constitutional court curtailed the immunity Berlusconi had enjoyed as prime minister. Italy's status as a country under the rule of law has become more and more

questionable, but since that day the country moved back a bit closer to its democratic neighbors. Effective immediately, judges can decide on a case-by-case basis whether to subpoena the

prime minister or whether he can be excused from appearing in court in order to perform the important duties of office. Over the last 17 years, Berlusconi has been the target of 28

investigations. Each time, he has either been acquitted or the case has come under the statute of limitations. In the "Rubygate" case, Milan's prosecutors ordered accelerated

proceedings, reportedly because they have a lot of confidence in their evidence. Granted, as Berlusconi's attorney and attack dog Niccolo Ghedini puts it, being an "end user"

of prostitution is not a crime in Italy. But engaging in acts of prostitution involving a minor is punishable with up to three years in prison. Berlusconi is also accused of having called

the police to secure the release of Ruby, who had been charged with theft and who used the now-legendary claim that she was the niece of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Abuse of office can

carry a sentence of up to 12 years. This time the charges could stick. Given his government's narrow majority, it could be devastating. If early elections were held, cameras in the

courtroom would be a disaster. Tabloid journalist Marco Travaglio, who is confident that there will be a trial, jokingly refers to the elections as "early erections."

'BASTA!' In Italy, not everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, and the private sphere is sacrosanct. These rules have applied in Italy for a long time and become part of the

"Berlusconism" that marks the country. But now even the Italians have had enough. Paying minors for sex is an unforgivable crime. Still, the sex issue is not the whole story. The

economic crisis is partly responsible for Italians' outrage. They are feeling the cuts in their education system that have made schools unable to afford toilet paper, and only one in

three Italians under 25 is employed. "Basta!" they shout at their sit-ins in front of the parliament in Rome. "Enough!" And, in response, as he did last week, Berlusconi

asks: "Me? Resign? Are you nuts?" "A prime minister must be better than we are," the liberal daily newspaper _La Stampa_ wrote last week. "Berlusconi is not like us.

He should control his vices or hide them like Kennedy or Mitterand. And if he is caught, he cannot deny the obvious. Someone fond of bunga-bunga can govern an empire, but not a

democracy." ACTS OF DENIAL According to the picture painted by the investigative files, the 74-year-old prime minister lives in Arcore like a ruler living it up because he fears his

time might soon be over. The members of his staff who allegedly procured the girls for him include an aging TV journalist, a talent scout and Nicole Minetti, a former dental hygienist. All

three are under investigation. Berlusconi met Minetti more than a year ago after a mentally disturbed man hurled a miniature replica of Milan's cathedral at his face. Today, she is the

head of his party's regional council in Lombardy. "Try speaking French; that really turns him on," Minetti allegedly advised the girls. "Tell him everything you do."

The girls have talked about how they ended up in his private quarters after performing their stripteases, and about how they were regarded as a tasty dessert when bunga-bunga time came

around. Berlusconi allegedly selected which girls he wanted to stay over for the night. Berlusoni denies having ever paid Ruby, the Moroccan girl who was just 17 at the time, for sex.

Indeed, the recorded mobile phone conversations suggest that Ruby didn't ask for money until a later point. She claims that Berlusconi called her constantly and told her to lie and

pretend to be crazy, and that he would shower her with money if she kept quiet. She allegedly demanded €5 million ($6.8 million). As expected, Berlusconi did not appear at a hearing last

Friday. Ruby, however, made an appearance on television, where she talked about her horrible childhood in Morocco, about being raped and about the parallel life full of lies she dreamt up to

escape them. It was clear that she had learned a lot from Berlusconi, and that she now knows a little about putting on a performance full of combativeness and tears, an act designed to

elicit pity and money. "He didn't touch me," she said. "He thought I was 24," Ruby added, saying that he had only given her €7,000 "because he wanted to help

me." She even delivered her speech in the most public form possible: on a show aired on Berlusconi's private television station, Canale 5. Translated from the German by Christopher

Sultan