Berlusconi Denies Having Sex With Underage Girl

Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has denied hosting raunchy parties, having sex with an underage girl and abusing his powers by pressuring police.

Mr Berlusconi is accused of paying for sex with Moroccan exotic dancer Karima El Mahroug, better known as Ruby the Heart Stealer, when she was 17.

Making a rare appearance at his trial in Milan, the 76-year-old told the court: "I never had an intimate relationship of any kind with her. I was sure she was 24, as she herself said."

Referring to the 'Bunga Bunga' parties at his villa near the city, he said: "I can exclude with absolute certainty that there were ever scenes of a sexual nature."

The 'Bunga Bunga' - described by many of his female guests as a type of lap dance he enjoyed - was "only a joke I used to tell which then got picked up by the press," he told the court's three female judges.

Mr Berlusconi said: "There has been a lot of fantasising about the parties I held in my private residence with clear defamatory intent and intrusion into my private life.

"They were just dinners in which I monopolised the attention, singing, talking about sport, politics and gossiping."

He denied paying for sex with any guest at his villa and insisted no gathering of a sexual nature took place there.

Speaking about his telephone call to a Milan police station when Ms El Mahroug was arrested, Mr Berlusconi said he "never put pressure on Milan police".

He said he had wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident because he thought she was the niece of the then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

The charge of exploiting an underage girl in Italy carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison and abuse of power up to 12 years.

The trial began in April 2011 and was one of the last in a series of scandals that helped precipitate Mr Berlusconi's political downfall in November last year.