Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, will likely face charges participating in prostitution. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was recently found to have no legal exemption from criminal prosecution by an Italian court. Prosecutors want to try Berlusconi on charges of having had engaged the services of a teenage prostitute. He might go on trial in a few months.

Italian prosecutors want speedy trial for controversial leader

Prosecutors in Milan are attempting to arrange a speedy trial for embattled Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for charges of engaging the services of an underage prostitute, according to The Guardian. Prosecutors for the city of Milan have asked that Berlusconi be taken into custody immediately because of overwhelming evidence. The request is being reviewed by a judge. Berlusconi’s attorneys warned of constitutional barriers to the Prime Minister being thrown in jail. Berlusconi blasted the case in a press conference in Rome, saying that it was disgusting and a disgrace. He also said that he was going to sue the state and that “the taxpayer” would ultimately pay for the whole debacle.

Alleged misconduct with underage mistress

Silvio Berlusconi is being indicted for allegedly engaging in prostitution with a girl named Ruby the Heartstealer, a Moroccan national who works primarily as a nightclub dancer, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Prostitution is legal in Italy if the prostitute is at least 18 years old, but Ruby was 17 at the time the alleged encounter.  Berlusconi tried to personally intervene to have police drop theft charges against Ruby, whose real name is Karima el-Mahroug. Berlusconi admitted trying to exert political influence, and he claimed that she told him she was the granddaughter of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. A law enforcement official involved in the case quipped that “if she’s Mubarak’s granddaughter, then I’m Queen Nefertiti of the Nile.”

Berlusconi tries to legally block all prosecution

Berlusconi has previously survived two votes of no confidence in the Italian parliament, narrowly surviving each. His party recently passed a law that bars any criminal prosecution of the Prime Minister, but that was overturned in court for being unconstitutional. His popularity is shaky at best, and he could serve up to three years in prison if convicted. Berlusconi has been involved in 2,568 court hearings, according to The Telegraph.

Sources

The Guardian

Christian Science Monitor

The Telegraph

Silvio Berlusconi -- Photo by Lorenza e Vincenzo Iaconianni (Wikimedia/CC BY-SA)

Italian mobsters have reigned in many countries with royalty status. Can the new Prime Minister of Italy reign them in? Italy has a reputation for having given birth to the most organized and ordered criminal organization in the Western Hemisphere. La Cosa Nostra, an Italian-American mob, was born forth from the family-based culture of Italy and has spread to other parts of the globe.

Italian mob in politics

Over the years this organization grew to the point that members also began dabbling in politics and found that they were at home in it. They have pervaded society on the level that they are operating outside the system, but in reality, influencing almost everything. They are the shadow hand in all things: laws, government policies, decisions of elected officials, unexplained crimes and other social anomalies.

Mob history in the U.S.

It is generally believed that the pervasive hold the mob once had in the United States took a drastic turn in the ’60s and ’70s. Many mob bosses were locked up and their establishments and wealth confiscated. Examples of this include the massive transfer of wealth in the form of gambling casinos in Las Vegas, Nev. Some believe the mob gained power in the ’20s because of the prohibition of alcohol. It is believed that changes in lending laws, which made the way for the no credit check payday loan and cash advance loan industries, removed a large source of income, namely illegal loan sharking.

A program to rid Italy of the mob

The crime families are said to have amassed so much power and wealth that they can actually steer the government and even put into power any government official. That is the current state of controversy faced by the Italian Prime Minister. Silvio Berlusconi is said to enjoy the favor of the various crime families at least in Italy who, according to rumors, make sure that the regions of the country they control support him.

The theory examination

Prime Minister Berlusconi has been conducting a program to rid Italy of the mob. However, thinking skeptically, what better front for a mob-installed politician than to have a policy of being anti-mob? After all they have done in the past, it could be that mobsters have orchestrated their own public decline so that they can better retreat into the backdrop and still continue to exist, but more discreetly. No one knows for sure, though.