Media interviews hint a 20-year-old woman may have ratcheted up her role for the PM, writes PADDY AGNEWin Rome
GOOD NEWS for beleaguered Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi – or was it? In an interview with daily Il Fatto Quotidianoyesterday, mysterious Montenegrin Katarina Knezevic (20) claimed that she is now the "official fiancée" (fidanzata) of the 75-year-old prime minister.
“Since you insist, I’ll give you a scoop. The other night during his birthday party celebrations, the prime minister gave me an engagement ring. We are officially engaged,” Ms Knezevic told the paper.
This is the second time in the last week that the much-discussed Katarina has claimed to be Mr. Berlusconi's "chosen one". In an interview with Rome daily La Repubblicaon Thursday, she claimed she lives in Berlusconi's Arcore residence, near Milan, and that there was "no mystery" about her relationship with him.
Italian media sources have speculated for weeks now about this latest femme fatale in Berlusconi’s busy private life, with reports claiming that she has ruined various Berlusconi dinner parties, both through violent fits of jealousy and through getting drunk.
Reports also suggest she and two elder sisters may have attempted to blackmail the prime minister, highlighting alleged links between the two sisters, Slavica and Zorica, to Montenegrin godfather Ratko Djokic, killed in a shoot-out in Stockholm in May 2002.
Asked yesterday by Il Fatto Quotidianoif it was true that Berlusconi had paid her €750,000, Knezevic replied: "So little? And if it was three million?"
Whatever about the seriousness of the Knezevic allegations, Berlusconi this morning starts another pressurised week in a familiar place – the courtroom dock.
Even though he will not be in Milan’s courthouse, he will feature large in two concurrent “Rubygate” sex scandal trials, both being heard this morning.
In the first one, he stands accused of “abuse of office” and “exploitation of underage prostitution” in relation to his alleged relationship with Moroccan belly dancer Karima “Ruby” el-Mahroug.
In the second one, a preliminary hearings judge must decide if three of his associates, impresario Lele Mora, Rete 4 TV head of news Emilio Fede and Lombardy regional councillor Nicole Minetti, should stand trial on charges of “exploitation of prostitution” over their alleged roles in organising and providing young women for his “bunga- bunga” nights – in this case almost exclusively in his Arcore residence.
Curiously, it is this second trial which may cause most problems for the prime minister. It could be that the first trial will be stopped by the constitutional court given that parliament last April called for the court to rule on a potential conflict of jurisdiction, linked to his role as prime minister.
No such legal loophole seems likely to stop the second trial, however. Were the case to go ahead, it could crucially see many of the same young women witnesses who feature in “Rubygate 1” giving evidence about the bunga-bunga nights, something Berlusconi would almost certainly like to avoid.
In the meantime, he is reportedly unworried by the decision of leather fashion tycoon Diego Della Valle to take out full- page newspaper advertisements last weekend, denouncing the incompetence of Italian politicians and calling on them to act responsibly to get Italy “out of this very worrying moment”.