Says Berlusconi told her bunga bunga was a harem he copied from friend Muammar Gaddafi

Dozens of naked women surround Italian Prime Minister vying with each other to arouse him — Silvio Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" parties as reportedly described to prosecutors by a key participant.

"After dinner we went into a hall in the basement where the bunga bunga was held," Karima El Mahroug, a pole dancer nicknamed "Ruby the Heart Stealer", was quoted as saying to investigators in leaks published by La Repubblica daily. "All the girls were naked during the bung bunga and I had the feeling that they were competing with each other to make Berlusconi notice them by performing more and more daring sexual acts," she was quoted as saying.

Mahroug is the woman prosecutors say Berlusconi paid to have sex with at his luxury villa outside Milan when she was just 17 — a crime in Italy — though both parties deny it. Berlusconi is also accused of abusing his power by getting her released from police custody in a later incident when she had been arrested for theft.

Prosecutors said he was ensuring his sex offences remained secret, while his lawyers say he thought she was former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's niece. Berlusconi faces trial on both charges — which he vehemently denies — starting on April 6. In one of her quoted statements, the Mahroug described her first meeting with Berlusconi at his residence in February 2010.

"That evening Berlusconi told me that the bunga bunga was a harem that he copied from his friend (Libyan leader Muammar) Gaddafi in which girls strip off and have to give him 'physical pleasures'," she reportedly said. "The Prime Minister took me to his office and led me to understand that my life would change completely if I took part in the bunga bunga," she added.

She said she refused to take part the first time but joined Berlusconi the second time she visited in March, although she kept her clothes on. "I didn't strip off and I didn't perform sex acts," she said. "I was the only girl with my clothes on," she said.

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