The young Moroccan woman at the centre of Silvio Berlusconi's 'bunga bunga' sex case, Karima El Mahroug, visited the ex-premier's villa in northern Italy late last year, court documents reportedly suggest.
"In all probability, it seems that on several occasions between November and December last year, Ruby visited Arcore and on these occasions was wise enough to switch off her mobile phone as she approached," read the documents, cited by Il Fatto Quotidiano daily's website.
In a wiretapped phone conversation at 2.41 am on 2 December last year, the date of one of the suspected visits, Ruby is heard telling her aggrieved new boyfriend why her mobile had been switched off since 11 pm.
In another wiretap on 6 December, Ruby tells a private investigator hired to keep tabs on the new boyfriend that her mobile phone will be switched off from 11.30 pm to 2.30 am.
The court documents relate to a judicial probe of allegations Berlusconi bribed witnesses, mainly young female guests at parties held at his villa in Arcore near Milan to perjure themselves in the original case in which he was accused of paying an underage prostitute for sex in 2010 and of abuse of office.
Berlusconi vowed to make a political comeback earlier this month after Italy's supreme found him not guilty of knowingly having sex with an underage prostitute when he was prime minister in 2010 and of abusing his powers of office to cover up their liaison.
The court upheld Berlusconi's controversial acquittal in the case by an appeals court last year. A lower court had convicted Berlusconi of both charges, and sentenced him to seven years in prison and a lifetime ban from politics.
The billionaire media mogul and El Mahroug both deny having sex. He allegedly paid her over six million euros not to bring civil action against him. Prosecutors claim El Mahroug was planning to invest at least 4.5 million euros of this money to open a beauty spa and dental surgery in the northwest Italian city of Genoa.
A restaurant and bakery, real estate in Mexico and a catering business were also on El Mahroug's list of projects, according to prosecutors.
