Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was acquitted on Thursday by a court in Siena of bribing a witness in the trial involving a former escort, reports Reuters news agency. Berlusconi was accused of paying pianist Danilo Mariani to lie in the case over whether Berlusconi had sex in 2013 for a fee with the then underage Moroccan Karima el-Mahrough, who became known by her stage name Ruby. Berlusconi himself has always declared his innocence. He is still suspected of bribery in two similar cases before courts in Rome and Milan.
Pianist Mariani was sentenced to two years in prison by the Siena court in May for lying during the original trial. He had claimed that the physical contact Berlusconi had with his female guests at his villa near Milan consisted only of shaking hands. Mariani has now been acquitted of taking bribes.
The scandal surrounding Ruby and the infamous sex parties at Berlusconi’s villa came to light in 2010. The parties were later renamed by the Italian media as ‘bungalow‘-parties. The 85-year-old Berlusconi was finally acquitted in March 2015 of having paid sex with an underage prostitute and of abuse of power. He was previously sentenced to seven years in prison and Berlusconi, now leader of the Italian political party Forza Italia, threatened to be banned from political office for life.
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