Rome - Milan judges on Sunday questioned a 25-year-old woman accused of helping to recruit underage girls to attend Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's parties, the ANSA news agency said.
The judges summoned Nicole Minetti as part of a probe into the prime minister's alleged dalliances with under-age prostitutes.
Originally scheduled for Tuesday, they brought forward the session to allow Minetti to escape excessive media attention, ANSA reported, citing her lawyer Daria Pesce. The session lasted two hours, the agency added.
The Milan investigation was sparked by allegations that the prime minister paid to have sex with an underage girl known as Ruby, real name Karima El Mahroug. Both she and Berlusconi have denied the allegations.
When Ruby was arrested last May for alleged theft, Berlusconi is said to have put pressure on police in Milan to release her and place the Moroccan disco dancer in Minetti's custody.
Minetti, a former dental assistant who became a regional councillor for Berlusconi's party in early 2010, has always denied accusations of inciting prostitution and has publicly defended Berlusconi.
She is less flattering about him, however, in wire-tapped conversations published in the Italian media in recent days.
Berlusconi himself has been criticised for refusing to appear before judges who accuse him of having used prostitutes he kept in rent-free luxury apartments and of having held orgies at his private villas.
On Thursday, magistrates accused Berlusconi of paying for sex with a second minor, Iris Berardi, described by prosecutors as a “well-known prostitute” who had attended parties at his villas in Sardinia and near Milan.
Paying for sex with prostitutes is not a crime in Italy.
But since Berlusconi's right-wing government voted in a law in 2006, having sex with an underage prostitute has been punishable with a prison sentence.
Berlusconi has accused Italy's judges of waging a personal campaign against him, and says that in any case the Milan court is not competent to carry out the investigation.
But on Friday he said he would go before any judge appointed to him by a special court to try ministers.
“I'm not afraid to be judged,” he told supporters.
“The thousands of judges who have obsessed over me and my life have never found a shred of proof that has stood up in court.”
The three judges leading the investigation into Berlusconi's sex life are expected to call for fast-track proceedings against him in the next few days, ANSA reported. - AFP