Italy's Berlusconi indicted in witness-tampering case again

ROME, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Former Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi was on Monday indicted along with four more defendants in the so-called Ruby Ter witness-tampering case, ANSA news agency reported.

Charges include corruption of judicial proceedings and false testimony, according to ANSA.

The octogenarian center-right Forza Italia (FI) party leader is to go on trial beginning May 9 along with four women who were reportedly guests at alleged "bunga bunga" orgies at his home in Arcore near Milan while he was still serving as prime minister.

Berlusconi is currently on trial in a separate strand of the Ruby Ter case, in which he is accused of bribing several showgirls with millions of euros to testify in his favor when he was on the stand for paying Moroccan dancer Karima El Mahroug -- also known as "Ruby" -- for sex while she was still underage. That trial ended in an acquittal.

Separately, in 2013, Berlusconi was found guilty of tax fraud at his Mediaset media empire and sentenced to four years in prison. However, three years were suspended thanks to an amnesty and he served the remainder doing community service in a retirement home.

Also that year, Berlusconi was expelled from parliament based on an anti-corruption law first introduced by his own government, which says that people with convictions of more than two years in prison can't be in office.

The media mogul has applied to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights to have his expulsion from Italy's parliament voided. That case is still pending. Enditem