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Italy’s top court clears Berlusconi in bunga bunga sex case

Scardaccione also unsuccessfully attempted to convince the judges that Berlusconi and his entourage knew full well that Ruby was only just 17 at the time of their encounter.

“He had a dragon’s passion for minors,” the prosecutor told the court.

Berlusconi was not present at a hearing which analysts had billed as crucial for his ability to reassert control over his fragmenting party.

Giovanni Orsina, an academic at the LUISS business school in Rome and an expert on the media magnate’s impact on Italian politics, said the distraction of legal battles had helped Renzi emerge as the dominant figure in Italian politics.

“Berlusconi’s clarity of mind basically disappeared (with the tax conviction),” he argued. “Since then he has been uncertain, unclear and politically ineffective.”

But with the Ruby case now out of the way, Orsina believes Berlusconi could inflict “real damage” on Renzi’s reform agenda.

– Renzi reforms threatened –

Renzi relied on support from Berlusconi to steer landmark labour reforms through parliament late last year.

But their alliance collapsed last month after Renzi successfully backed an actively anti-Berlusconi candidate, Sergio Mattarella, to become Italy’s new president.

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The Forza Italia leader has since vowed to fight proposals to effectively abolish the Senate and adopt a new electoral law designed to produce governments with working parliamentary majorities.

Berlusconi’s entire political career has been overshadowed by allegations of criminal behaviour and serial court cases: and they are not completely over.

He could yet be convicted on charges that he paid off many of the young women who attended his famous soirees in return for false testimony in the Ruby trial.

Also outstanding is a charge that he paid a senator three million euros ($4.0 million) in 2006 to join his party and destabilise a centre-left government.

Past experience however suggest the tycoon’s lawyers may be able to string out both cases for sufficient time for the charges to be dropped without a judge ever making a ruling.

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