‘I’d be better than Superman to have had 24 girls’

ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has laughed off an inquiry into his bawdy sex life and relationship with an underage girl as magistrates struggled to get permission to search his offices for evidence against him.

Milan’s prosecutors hit a hitch yesterday in their endeavour to prove Berlusconi hooked up with prostitutes he kept in rent-free luxury apartments, when a parliamentary committee stalled over authorising the search warrant.

Allegations the prime minister hand-picked prostitutes for wild parties and paid to have sex with the underage girl, known as Ruby, left Italy reeling this week and sparked fierce criticism from the Church and opposition parties.

News of the investigation came just the day after a court ruling partially stripped the prime minister of political immunity.

While having sex with prostitutes is not a crime in Italy, having sex with a minor has been punishable with a prison sentence since Berlusconi’s right-wing government voted in a law against it in 2006.

“A significant number of young girls prostituted themselves with Silvio Berlusconi in exchange for sums of money,” prosecutors said in a document asking the Chamber of Deputies for permission to raid various premises linked to Berlusconi. In wire taps of conversations between Ruby and friends, the Moroccan, whose real name is Karima El Mahroug, said she had asked Berlusconi for €5 million compensation for having sullied her name.

Berlusconi has dismissed the allegations as a “media construction” and said he had no intention of resigning.

“Are you mad?” he retorted when questioned by journalists. “I’m having fun!”

He went even further last evening, adding: “I’d be better than Superman if I’d had parties with 24 girls”.

However, the quip reportedly failed to raise a laugh among his government colleagues who considered it ill-judged timing for jokes.

Last night the Moroccan teenager at the centre of the prostitution probe said she has never been a prostitute, and that the Italian premier never touched her.

Ruby told a television interview on the network founded by Berlusconi that she said she was 24 years of age when she met the premier last Valentine’s Day, when in fact she was 17. Ruby told Canale Berlusconi gave her €7,000 the first time they met. But she insisted he didn’t “lay a finger” on her.

Prosecutors hope to search the offices of Berlusconi’s trusted sidekick Giuseppe Spinelli, who manages the prime minister’s Fininvest holdings and is suspected of unwittingly handling money for Berlusconi’s prostitutes. Spinelli’s offices are considered part of Berlusconi’s domain.

But yesterday Italy’s parliamentary committee speaker, a member of Berlusconi’s centre-right party, postponed the decision by at least a week, claiming to need more time to read the prosecution’s 389-page document.

Milan’s magistrates, led by fearful mafia-hunter Ilda Boccassini — nicknamed Ilda the Red by media thanks to her flame-coloured hair — may be running out of time to find evidence they insist is there. Berlusconi has said he is convinced parliament will move to take the case from Milan’s prosecutor’s office and hand it over to the minister’s court, where it will most likely be dropped.

Prosecutors have demanded Berlusconi submit to interrogation this month, but the prime minister has dismissed the idea.