Businessman ‘found girls for Berlusconi orgies’

They allege that between September 2008 and May 2009 Gianpaolo Tarantini recruited women of “young age, slender frame,” and told them what to wear and how to behave at the parties.

Prosecutors have now wrapped up their investigation into Tarantini who is under investigation for allegedly aiding and abetting prostitution.

Mr Berlusconi is not under investigation. But the revelations are proving a further embarrassment for the scandal-plagued leader who has been attacked in leading Italian newspapers.

“Italy deserves better,” La Stampa newspaper said in an editorial.

In the document summing up their conclusions, prosecutors charge that Mr Tarantini was paying the women so he could win favour with Mr Berlusconi and, through him, obtain jobs with state-run firms and agencies.

Mr Berlusconi is already on trial in four separate cases in Milan on charges of corruption, tax fraud and paying for sex with a minor.

He might face another one after a judge said on Thursday he should be indicted for his role in the publication about five years ago, in a family-owned newspaper, of wiretaps that damaged a political rival and were covered by secrecy laws. No decision on an indictment has been made.

The premier has always denied wrongdoing, saying he is the victim of a politically-driven justice system intent on ousting him.

He has maintained that the parties at his villas – now known as “bunga bunga” and described as sex-filled bacchanalia – were decent and elegant soirees where nothing tawdry was going on.

Mr Tarantini has insisted Mr Berlusconi did not pay the women himself and did not know that he did.

The case reignited calls for Mr Berlusconi to resign at a time where the country is fighting a financial crisis and seeking to reassure markets of its credibility.