The billionaire, 74, who has faced dozens of indictments but always survived, could be in the dock by Easter charged with having sex with an under-age belly dancer named Ruby and abusing his office to cover it up.
"For the first time he'll be on trial for something straightforward and lurid: under-age sex and/or covering it up, and something that happened recently, not some hoary old probe into accounting misdemeanours," said Professor James Walston of the American University in Rome.
Note EU-Digest: Berlusconi has already faced 2,568 court hearings – although he has turned up in person to very few – and more than 100 different legal cases, according to his spokesman. But he has never been definitively convicted of any crime, and has repeatedly accused Italy's judiciary of trying to destroy him politically.
Note EU-Digest: Berlusconi has already faced 2,568 court hearings – although he has turned up in person to very few – and more than 100 different legal cases, according to his spokesman. But he has never been definitively convicted of any crime, and has repeatedly accused Italy's judiciary of trying to destroy him politically.
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