Italian authorities are treating the death of Imane Fadil, a Moroccan model who was a witness in former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” trial, as a potential murder case.
Prosecutors said that Fadil died on March 1 in a Milan-area hospital after wasting away for over a month with an undiagnosed condition.
According to report, an autopsy is expected this week.
Souad Sbai, a former lawmaker for Berlusconi’s centre-right party, told La Repubblica newspaper that she was “absolutely” sure that Fadil was murdered.
Milan chief prosecutor Francesco Greco spoke on Friday of “symptoms of poisoning” and said his office was conducting “in depth investigations” into “a serious affair.”
Fadil was one of the showgirls who testified about how Berlusconi used to invite them for “bunga bunga” sex parties.
She had reportedly written a book about her experiences.
Those parties led to Berlusconi being indicted and finally cleared for soliciting sex from a 17-year-old prostitute and abusing his position to cover up the affair.
The former premier is currently on trial on charges of bribing witnesses to help secure his acquittal.
On Saturday, Berlusconi denied ever having met Fadil.
According to Sbai, “beautiful Moroccan girls” like Fadil have been used by the Moroccan embassy in Rome to seduce and blackmail influential Italian figures, including Berlusconi.
“Imane Fedil knew a lot, she had probably decided to take a step back from these plots and they killed her,’’ Sbai, president of the Association of Moroccan Women in Italy, said.
An investigative source, quoted by Monday’s Corriere della Sera daily, said Fedil’s body had high levels of radioactivity, “like someone who worked in a foundry for 30 years.”
