Belly dancer tells of PM's gifts

17-year-old Moroccan belly dancer Karima Keyek. Photo / Facebook

The latest sex scandal threatening Silvio Berlusconi has deepened after a 17-year-old Moroccan belly dancer linked to the Italian Prime Minister said he had given her €7000 ($12,700) and jewellery at a Valentine's Day dinner this year for 10 women at his mansion near Milan.

The girl, named as Karima Keyek, denies sleeping with Berlusconi. "It's the first time in my life that a man has not tried to take me to bed. He behaved like a father, I swear," she told La Repubblica. But she has painted a vivid portrait of private parties held by the 74-year-old Prime Minister, lavish affairs often involving after-dinner sex between male and female guests.

In La Repubblica, she said her host had told her not to come to see him any more after discovering she was not, as she had claimed, 24. "Berlusconi said he had had enough problems in the past with another underage girl," she said. Keyek told Oggi magazine: "He wanted to help me. He told me that he wouldn't ask anything in return. He gave me an envelope with €7000 in it and I told him I dreamed of gaining Italian citizenship and becoming a policewoman."

Berlusconi has confirmed Keyek had been his guest. But he has denied claims he pressured Milan police to release Keyek when arrested on suspicion of stealing €3000 from a friend.

Yesterday the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported Berlusconi had told a senior police official that Keyek was related to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Berlusconi says he merely told police he was dispatching a colleague to take temporary custody of Keyek should she be released.

Berlusconi sent Nicole Minetti, a TV showgirl turned dental hygienist who caught Berlusconi's eye when she treated his teeth and whom he made a regional councillor for his Freedom People Party.

Showbusiness agent Lele Mora, Minetti and TV presenter Emilio Fede are being investigated for alleged aiding and abetting of prostitution.

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