Ruby ter: Prime Minister Meloni withdraws the civil action against Berlusconi: “New choice, this government is the result of the popular will”

The Prime Minister informs that today – on the day in which FdI and the center-right defeat their political opponents in the Regionals – the State Attorney’s Office is instructed to revoke its constitution as a civil party in the so-called ‘Ruby ter’ criminal trial against – among others – of Silvio Berlusconi. The constitution – reads the note from Palazzo Chigi – was prepared in 2017 by the Gentiloni government, “a politically led executive, based on a choice dictated by its own assessments, in a historical moment in which no judicial pronouncements had yet been made in the same case”.

“The formation – continues the note – which took place in October 2022, of a new government, a direct expression of the popular will, determines a re-evaluation of the choice originally made. This appears all the more appropriate in the light of the acquittals that first the Court of Appeal of Milan with a sentence of July 2014, which became irrevocable, then the Court of Rome with a sentence of November 2022 made against Senator Berlusconi in segments of the same story”.

The Ruby case, a story spanning over 10 years

The three strands of inquiry into the Ruby case open after the night at the Police Headquarters on May 28, 2010, when Karima El Marough, known as Ruby, is arrested for a theft. The then premier Silvio Berlusconi, who is in Paris, telephones the head of the cabinet Pietro Ostuni telling him that the girl had been indicated to him as the niece of the Egyptian president Mubarak and that it would come Nicole Minetti, at the time regional councilor, to take her into foster care. The circumstance comes true, despite the decision of the prosecutor of the minors Anna Maria Fiorillo to order the placement of the young woman in a community. A few days later, however, the Moroccan was hospitalized after an argument with the prostitute Michelle Conceicao, it really ends up in a secure facility. Thus begins the investigation.

Berlusconi accused

At the center of the story are the alleged red-light parties in Arcore in which the young woman who, not yet of age, allegedly had sex in exchange for money and other benefits with the former head of government, would also have participated. Berlusconi to prevent all this from coming to light, when Karima is arrested, calls Ostuni to obtain, according to the reconstruction of the investigators, that she be released.

The first Ruby process

On 14 January 2011, the prosecutors ordered searches of the apartments in the residence in via Olgettina, sent the prime minister an invitation to appear and on 9 February, having failed to appear, on the basis of “obvious evidence”, they requested the immediate trial. On February 15, the investigating judge Christine DiCenso sends him back to trial for the crimes of extortion and child prostitution.

On April 6, 2011, the trial began and Ruby’s lawyer announced that the girl would not have brought a civil action because she believed she had not suffered any damage. Many witnesses file before the judges: the girls from the Arcore parties, the ”Olgettines” but also the so-called “repentants” of the bunga-bunga, all those who somehow had anything to do with Karima, up to the parliamentarians of the Pdl and the characters in the Knight’s entourage. Ruby, cited as a witness by the defense, twice fails to appear before the college. After a series of interruptions, also due to the elections, on 13 May 2013 the conclusion of the indictment and the request for 6 years in prison, as many years of legal disqualification and perpetual disqualification from public office. On 24 June of the same year, Berlusconi was sentenced to 7 years in prison, one more than the request, for charges of child prostitution and extortion for coercion.

The absolution

On 20 June 2014, the appeal process began. on 18 July Berlusconi was acquitted in full: as regards the charge of extortion, “the fact does not exist” and, with reference to the charge of child prostitution, “the fact does not constitute a crime”. The reasons for the sentence make it clear that “there was prostitution” but no adequate evidence to confirm Berlusconi’s knowledge of the girl’s age. On 10 March 2015, after about 10 hours in closed session, the Cassation confirmed the acquittal.

The Ruby bis

It concerns other figures in Silvio Berlusconi’s entourage. On 19 July 2013 the judges sentenced him to 7 years Lele Mora and Emilio Fede and at 5 Nicole Minetti. On 13 November 2014, the Milan Court of Appeal confirmed the sentences but reduced the sentences for the three defendants: four years and ten months for Emilio Fede; three years with extenuating circumstances for Nicole Minetti; six years and one month for Lele Mora. In September 2015, the Cassation referred the documents to another second instance judgment. On 7 May 2018, the Milan Court of Appeal reduced the sentences again: 4 years and 7 months for Fede and 2 years and 10 months for Minetti. In April 2019, the Cassation confirmed the sentence of 4 years and 7 months in prison for the former director of Tg4 Emilio Fede and 2 years and 10 months for the former Lombard councilor Nicole Minetti.

The Ruby Ter

On 3 January 2014 the chief prosecutor of Milan Edmondo Bruti Liberati announces the opening of the Ruby ter investigation speaking of a “due deed”. The new investigation stems from the decision to send the documents of the Ruby and Ruby bis trials to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. From the reasons for the two sentences, hypotheses of crime against 45 suspects are inferred, including corruption in judicial documents, false testimony and disclosure of secrecy. Berlusconi is accused of having “bought” the reticence of witnesses in trials to prove his innocence. Also among the suspects Niccolo Ghedini And Piero Longolawyers of the former prime minister (their position was later filed), numerous “olgettine”, the singer Mariano Apicella, the senator Maria Rosaria Rossi. On 2 May 2016, the judge “split up” the trial into 7 courts, accepting the exceptions of territorial jurisdiction presented by the defence. The positions of some suspects end up in Monza, Treviso, Rome, Pescara, Siena and Turin. 23 suspects remain in Milan, including Berlusconi. On 5 April 2017 the presidency of the Council of Ministers, then under the leadership of the Democratic Party Paul Gentiloniasks to bring a civil action against the former prime minister, in the judgment of Milan.

In July 2018, this section of the proceeding was reunited with the one in which the former Prime Minister is still accused of having corrupted four other guests of the evenings, with over 400 thousand euros in exchange for their version of the “elegant dinners” given in the trials. In March 2019, one of the key witnesses of the trial died, Iman Fadil: the girl had asked to be a civil party in the proceedings. The Milan prosecutor opens a homicide file, which closes in September of the same year by decreeing that the Moroccan model died due to “a bone marrow aplasia associated with acute hepatitis, an extremely rare and extremely serious clinical entity “.

The first conviction request for the Ruby Ter

In February 2020, the first request for a conviction for Berlusconi arrives from Siena. The request made by the prosecutor Valentina Magnini is 4 years and 2 months in prison for corruption in judicial acts. The Knight is accused of having paid the Sienese pianist from Arcore, Danilo Mariani, to induce him to give false testimony in the Olgettine case. Precisely for false testimony, the magistrate asked for 4 years and 6 months for Mariani. After the request for a conviction, the proceedings stalled for the first time as the hearings were postponed for months due to the Covid pandemic. In September 2020, the former prime minister was hit by Covid and hospitalized for 11 days. In November 2020, in the first hearing after the pandemic, the former prime minister’s lawyer declared that Berlusconi needed a period of “absolute rest” at home. From this date the Knight’s precarious health conditions and hospitalizations due to his heart problems lead to a series of postponements which in fact block the proceeding again. New postponements are requested in January 2021 and April 2021, when the Sienese court accepts the request for legitimate impediment, as the Cavaliere was hospitalized for checks at the San Raffaele in Milan, made by the defenders of the leader of Forza Italia.

The Milanese “strand”.

In the meantime, at the end of the month, the Ruby ter trial in Milan will also be blocked until Berlusconi is resigned. In this case the pm Luke Gaglio he does not oppose the request for legitimate impediment, but raises “concerns” about some “prognoses” indicated in medical reports in which “the conditional is spoken” to ask for a “delay of 2 or 3 months”. In May, the Milanese trial undergoes a long postponement of almost four months for all the defendants. For Berlusconi there are no excerpts, not even temporary ones, from his position. The trial was postponed to 8 September, the day on which a medico-legal report was ordered on Silvio Berlusconi’s condition. On 16 September 2021, Berlusconi, with an indignant letter linked above all to the request to carry out a psychiatric report, also refused it.

Absolution in Siena

On 21 October 2021, the court of Siena met for the first hearing after the postponements and acquitted both defendants (Berlusconi and Mariani) for whom the prosecutor had requested a 4-year sentence.