MILAN. Four days before the elections of 25 September, the Milanese Ruby Ter trial, which sees Silvio Berlusconi and 28 other people as defendants, has not been interrupted. The leader of Forza Italia with his lawyer Federico Cecconi has decided not to present any instance of legitimate impediment for reasons of electoral campaign. Although he would have been able to do so, also due to the proximity of the vote scheduled for Sunday. A different choice from the one made in April 2019, when the former premier asked for and obtained a postponement from the court because he was a candidate in the European elections scheduled for May of that year. “The trial goes on because we had already made agreements, already at the end of July, in this sense, with the court considering the fact that no preliminary investigation was carried out, given that we are already in a subsequent phase, and therefore in the face of the planning of the hearings and crystallized scheduling, for a speech of correctness we have respected this type of indication », commented the lawyer Cecconi in a pause.
The defenders of Silvia Trevaini and Roberta Bonasia took the floor in the hearing held in the bunker hall of San Vittore. Between Silvio Berlusconi and the journalist of Mediaset Trevaini “there was a solid personal relationship, not itchy, a relationship that justified the donations” in favor of her by the former prime minister for “generosity” and despite this she was “overwhelmed from a tide of mud ». This was explained by the lawyer Paolino Ardia, the young woman’s lawyer. With his harangue, in which he asked for absolution with a broad formula, he aimed to dismantle the statements of the “so-called super-witness” Francesco Chiesa Soprani, former entertainment agent, who had spoken of 1.8 million euros paid from the Knight to the young woman. The money, the defense said, “which you benefited from, thanks to Berlusconi’s documented pure generosity, not aimed at other aspects, is not even half of these phantom 1.8 million”. And, he added, “it is not true that you took that money to keep quiet in the trials.” Regarding the alleged perjury, the lawyer Ardia, like other lawyers, returned to the order of the Court of recent months that made “useless” the statements made by the girls in the trials on the Ruby case, because they should, according to the judges, be investigated already at the time and heard as witnesses assisted by lawyers.
The lawyer Stefano Tizzani, lawyer of Roberta Bonasia, then intervenes from the chair reserved for the defense. «A girl who came from the outskirts of Turin, of humble origins», who «to study she has always supported herself», she began by turning to the college of the seventh penal section. A young woman with “a very humble and peaceful life” who changed in 2010, when she participated in the selection of Miss Piemonte, where “she was noticed by Fede”, then contacted by Lele Mora and invited to Silvio Berlusconi’s villa in Arcore and “yes he can say that then, quoting Manzoni, ‘the unfortunate replied’ ». After the invitation to Villa San Martino, she “was catapulted into a world never known before, she participated in three, four dinners, a stay in Sardinia at Villa Certosa”. The former Turin nurse “immediately had an important role because Berlusconi liked her, he had sympathy for her and was presented as ‘the girlfriend’, made to sit next to her, could tell the president about his dreams and hopes of her “. Surely, the defense continued, “a friendship was born here, I do not want to enter into the merits of what happened, everyone has their opinion, but it is undisputed that there was at least for a short time a sympathy for her on the part of the ‘then premier ». Then with the outbreak of the Ruby scandal in 2011 she “finds herself stigmatized and standardized with the other olgettine, an expression that becomes synonymous with prostitute.” For Bonasia “the morbid and media attention that rages on the trials” represents “a continuous dripping that prevents this girl from living a normal life”. Already in 2012 she «she was already unemployed, in psychological and economic difficulties and President Berlusconi moved by a feeling of friendship decided to help her. As she did it too with other girls. To tell the truth, he was not very generous with Bonasia, but he did so in a very transparent way, with dations all taking place in the light of the sun. civil. An accusation without foundation for the lawyer Tizzani who also defined the requests for compensation made by the model as “inadmissible”.
The trial will resume next Wednesday 28 September and 5 October with the continuation of the defenses that have yet to be concluded. Then, after a two-week break, on the 17th it will be up to Berlusconi’s lawyers, professor Franco Coppi and his colleague Federico Cecconi to pull the strings.