Silvio Berlusconi has vowed to return to the centre stage of Italian politics after he was definitively acquitted of paying an underage prostitute for sex and seeking to cover it up.
“Finally the truth,” the former Italian prime minister said yesterday. “With this sad episode behind us, I am back in the field to build, with Forza Italia and the centre right, a better Italy which is more just.”
On Tuesday, Italy’s supreme court upheld his successful appeal against a seven-year sentence in 2013 for paying Karima el Mahroug, a Moroccan dancer, for sex at one of his “bunga-bunga” parties when she was 17. However, his lawyer did admit to the court that “acts of prostitution” had taken place at the parties.
Mr Berlusconi, 78, has just completed months of community service as part of a separate sentence for tax fraud and he continues to be banned from elected office.