Did state planes fly prostitutes?

ROME – Opposition leaders demanded an inquiry on Saturday to see if Italian government aircraft flew a bevy of young escorts to Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s private parties.

Concern was also growing in Italy over whether the billionaire media mogul premier who allegedly boasted in an intercepted phone conversation that he ‘did only eight’ women in one night can concentrate on rescuing Italy from its severe economic woes.Italian newspapers were filled with transcripts of intercepted phone conversations of a jailed southern businessman, Gianpaolo Tarantini, who is being investigated for allegedly arranging and paying for women to prostitute themselves with the premier at parties at Berlusconi’s private residences in Rome, the Sardinia seacoast, and near Milan.Intercepted conversations that are part of investigations may be published once they are officially deposited in the court – in this case, in Bari, southeast Italy.Berlusconi, who turns 75 later this month, has denied ever paying for sex. But he has boasted of his weakness for young, beautiful women, an inclination cited by his second wife, who is divorcing him.Prostitution is not a crime in Italy, but exploiting prostitutes – as Tarantini is alleged to have done to try to curry favours with Berlusconi to win state contracts – is. In a separate probe, Tarantini iwas jailed for allegedly extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Berlusconi. The premier says he gave Tarantini and Tarantini’s wife, who was also arrested, money because he is a generous man who was trying to help a ‘family in need.’However, paying for sex with an underage person is a crime in Italy. In a separate case, Berlusconi is on trial in Milan for allegedly paying for sex with a Moroccan teenager. Berlusconi denies the accusation, and contends that that trial, as well as several corruption cases that were brought against him over dealings in his business empire, is part of a plot by prosecutors he says sympathise with the left and want to topple him from power.The Milan daily Corriere della Sera quoted the premier as telling Tarantini in one telephone call that he had to go that evening to Milan because the plane at his disposal was only available then. Tarantini then purportedly asks Berlusconi if he and some of the women could go with him from Rome to Milan, and the premier replies ‘you can.’Leoluca Orlandi of the opposition centrist Italy of Values party insisted that Berlusconi say if government planes ‘paid with taxpayer money’ flew paid escorts to his private soirees. Orlandi added in a statement that his party has asked the premier’s office to conduct an urgent inquiry.The speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, meanwhile, suggested it was time for Berlusconi to step down.In one of the conversations, Berlusconi purportedly tells a frequent female guest at his parties, ‘I am premier in my spare time.’ – Nampa-AP

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