ROME — Hollywood icon George Clooney and Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo could both testify in Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s defense in his upcoming sex trial, a lawyer told AFP Tuesday.
Clooney’s girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis, an Italian model and actress, is also on a list of 78 witnesses the premier’s legal team would like to call in his defense.
The Golden Globe-winning actor has a house on the shores of Lake Como in northern Italy, not far from Berlusconi’s private villa at Arcore, where the billionaire prime minister is alleged to have thrown wild parties.
Berlusconi is set to stand trial on April 6 for allegedly having paid pole dancer Karima El Mahroug, nicknamed “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” for sex when she was 17, after one of his parties.
“We have proposed George Clooney as a witness,” the lawyer said. “Ruby says both Clooney and Canalis were at a party at Arcore.”
The voluptuous dark-haired dancer also says she knows Ronaldo. She told investigating judges she had sex with the Real Madrid forward after meeting him in a Milan nightclub in January 2010.
Ronaldo has denied ever meeting Ruby.
The defense team has argued that Ruby and other would-be starlets lied over Berlusconi’s alleged nights with prostitutes and raucous parties with orgies and guests dressed up as nurses or policewomen.
The list also includes four Italian ministers and high-profile “personalities from the Italian showbiz world,” the lawyer added.
The Milan judges may decide not to grant the proposed witnesses if they decide their testimony is not relevant to the case in question.
Berlusconi, 74, is accused not only of paying for sex with Ruby but also improperly using his power as prime minister by asking police to release her after she was arrested for suspected theft in May.
Using the services of prostitutes is not a crime in Italy, but paying for sex with a girl under the age of 18 is illegal. Berlusconi has denied ever paying for sex, let alone with Ruby, who turned 18 in November 2010.
Copyright 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.
