Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the mysterious death of a Moroccan model who testified in one of the inquiries linked to former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” parties.
Imane Fadil died on 1 March but her death was only reported on Friday. She was admitted to Milan hospital on 29 January exhibiting “symptoms of poisoning”.
“The doctors have not identified with any certainty any pathology which can explain the death,” Milan chief prosecutor Francesco Greco told Reuters, adding that there were “several anomalies” in Fadil’s medical records.
The news agency ANSA said a toxicology test had found that she had been killed by a “mix of radioactive substances”, The Times newspaper reported.
Fadil testified at the 2012 trial of Berlusconi, who was accused of paying for sex with an underage prostitute.
In 2012, Fadil had told reporters that she feared for her safety after telling prosecutors investigating possible witness tampering in the case that she was offered money in exchange for her silence about what went on at the parties.
Berlusconi was initially convicted in the case but ultimately acquitted after a judge ruled he could not have known the underage prostitute was in fact a minor.
Magistrates subsequently laid new charges against Berlusconi and other defendants, accusing them of bribing some of the women who attended the parties to keep them from telling the truth at the initial trial.
They have denied the accusations.
Fadil told the court one of the parties at the media magnate’s home involved young women, sometimes in pairs, wearing nun’s costumes and stripping off while performing raunchy pole dances.
“They started to dance like the nuns of the film ‘Sister Act’, and then they took off their clothes,” she said. At another party, a woman in her underwear stripped for Berlusconi wearing a mask with the face of footballer Ronaldinho, she said.