MILAN (AP) – Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was found guilty of witness tampering on Wednesday in a trial related to the sexually charged “bunga-bunga” parties he threw during his tenure at his villa near Milan found not guilty.
The six-year-old’s trial is the third and likely final in a scandal that made global headlines in 2010, when Berlusconi – as acting prime minister – was accused of paying for sex with an underage girl. He was eventually acquitted.
In the third trial, Berlusconi was charged with paying witnesses for lying in previous trials. The public prosecutor had demanded a six-year prison sentence and 10 million euros in damages for him. Another 28 people, including the woman at the center of the scandal, Karima el-Mahroug, were also all found not guilty on Wednesday.
“I am very happy,” el-Mahroug told reporters after hearing the acquittal, adding that it showed she had always told the truth. “It only takes me a moment to process that fact to believe it.”
Berlusconi was not present for the sentencing but said in an Instagram post the acquittal ended years of “suffering, mud and unforeseeable political damage”.
His attorney, Federico Cecconi, called the verdict, which formally found no crime had been committed, “the most comprehensive acquittal we could achieve.”
The earlier trials took place when Berlusconi still wielded considerable power as prime minister, raising concerns among security officials that he was exposing himself to blackmail by harboring young women in his mansion.
The 86-year-old three-time ex-prime minister is currently the leader of the third party in Italy’s right-wing governing coalition, whose popularity has shrunk significantly since its heyday to around 6 percent, according to polls.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni welcomed Wednesday’s ruling, saying it “puts an end to a long judicial affair that has had important repercussions on Italy’s political and institutional life”.
Meloni’s government took the step this week to remove the government as a victim in the case to avoid creating an uncomfortable political dynamic in the case of a guilty verdict.
Berlusconi’s defense described the 2010 dinner parties as elegant soirees; Prosecutors said they were sex-driven gatherings that women were paid to attend and witnesses described showgirls stripping provocatively for the then Italian leader.
Both Berlusconi and el-Mahroug, who was 17 at the time, denied ever having sex together, and el-Mahroug, now 30, says she never worked as a prostitute.