Ruby asks Berlusconi for €5 mln for silence

Moroccan Karima El-Mahroug, better known by her stage name Ruby the Heart Stealer, a key figure in the trial against former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is accused of having sex with an underage prostitute, requested five million euros from the politician as hush money, according to telephone intercepts released on Monday by La Repubblica. The Italian newspaper published on its website five audio conversations recorded by police for Milan prosecutors made on October 26-28, 2010. Shortly before that, Italian media first reported about the alleged relationship between Berlusconi and the Moroccan minor. “He is crazy about me,” Ruby told a friend in a telephone conversation. “People immediately think the worst because they see a beautiful girl at Berlusconi’s house and think they would be having sex but it is not like that.” Though Karima said they did not have sex, Berlusconi offered her whatever she wanted to keep quiet about their relationship. “He told me to act like I was crazy and talk bull - and that he would be there for me with whatever I wanted. My lawyer and I have asked for five million euros in exchange for me to act crazy and he has accepted,” she told her ex-boyfriend Sergio Corsaro. A few days before the publication of the telephone conversations, Berlusconi attended the court hearing in Milan on the scandalous “Ruby case.” At these hearings the ex-premier admitted that he invites the girls who participated in high-profile parties at his villa because their lives had been destroyed. The parties were nothing more than “elegant dinners” he said.