The alleged call-girl at the centre of a trial against Silvio Berlusconi told a courtroom today that she had previously lied to investigators about raunchy parties hosted by the billionaire tycoon.
"I am sorry I talked rubbish when I spoke to prosecutors," Karima El-Mahroug, a dancer nicknamed "Ruby the Heart Stealer", said at a separate trial against three friends of Berlusconi's accused of pimping for him.
"The majority of the things I said were not true," she said. The Moroccan-born 21-year-old, who is alleged to have had sex for money with the then-prime minister several times in 2010 when she was 17, had said that Berlusconi and his accountant gave her $243,000 in cash.
But on Friday, she said she had "made up" the sum just to show off.
She also went back on testimony that Berlusconi had hosted strip shows for his "bodily stimulation" at his villa, saying that the girls who took part only stripped to their lingerie and there had been "no contact" with Berlusconi.
Several other young women have come forward with details of Berlusconi orgies. Berlusconi is accused of having sex with an underage prostitute, El-Mahroug, and of abuse of office when he called up a police station in May 2010 to have El-Mahroug released from custody when she was arrested for petty theft.