TWO PREVIOUSLY unknown 18-year-old women were yesterday reported as having offered further highly compromising evidence about one of the infamous “Bunga Bunga” nights in Arcore, the private Milanese residence of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Rome daily La Repubblicayesterday carried extensive extracts from testimony given to Milan public prosecutors by Ambra Battilana and Chiara Danese, two aspiring starlets who had looked for TV work from Emilio Fede, director of news at Mr Berlusconi's Rete 4 TV channels.
The women claim they have come forward now, eight months after the events, because they feel their names have been sullied by media association with the Bunga Bunga nights. These are at the heart of the Rubygate sex scandal in which 74-year-old Mr Berlusconi is accused of “exploitation of underage prostitution” and “abuse of office”.
The women claim that Mr Fede took them to Arcore on August 22nd last year for a party timed to begin after Mr Berlusconi had watched his football team, AC Milan, play a friendly against Juventus.
They claim that there were 15 people in attendance, with Mr Berlusconi and Mr Fede the only males. The evening started, they say, with the prime minister offering his guests jewellery and then entertaining them with a mixture of songs and bawdy jokes.
Ms Battilana continues: “But the worst was yet to come because after we had been sitting at table for 15 minutes, some of the girls went topless and offered their breasts to Berlusconi to be kissed. They were touching the prime minister in his intimate parts and they were being felt up themselves . . . While all this was happening, the women started singing, Meno Male che Silvio c’è (the PDL party song). The girls were calling the prime minister ‘daddykins’ and Berlusconi was calling all of us ‘my children, my dolls’.”
Later, the prime minister asked if they were “all ready for the Bunga Bunga”.When they expressed their discomfort, Mr Berlusconi took them on a short tour of his Arcore mansion, walking behind the girls and rubbing their bottoms, to their further discomfort.
In a downstairs discotheque, Ms Battilana said, “[regional councillor] Nicole Minetti got up to do a lap dance routine. She was wearing one of those dresses that you can pull apart, bit by bit. She ended up completely naked, without her bra or panties. After she had stripped off, she moved over towards Berlusconi and dancing in a very provocative manner wiggled her ass in his face. Then turning around, she held her breasts towards his mouth and he kissed them . . .”
Both Ms Battilana and Ms Danese claim that they became so frightened by the direction the night had taken that they went to Mr Fede and told him they “absolutely” wanted to go home. “Okay,” he replied, “but you can forget your career in television.”