Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s prostitution trial is coming up next month, and George Clooney has been named a witness by defense lawyers.
“It seems odd since I’ve only met Berlusconi once and that was in an attempt to get aid into Darfur,” Clooney told PEOPLE.
The 74 year old Prime Minister has denied charges of paying for sex on multiple occasions with Ruby, a 17-year-old Moroccan girl, and calling on police to release her after a theft charge because he believed she was the niece of exiled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarack.
A law firm representing Berlusconi said that Ruby claims Clooney and his Italian girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis had attended one of the Prime Minister’s parties.
“We want to see if they confirm this fact or not,” attorney Piersilvio Cipollotti told the AP.
Although Clooney owns a mansion North of Milan on Lake Como, close to the Prime Minister’s home, a February issue of the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported that Canalis denied attending any of Berlusconi’s parties.
According to The Associated Press, Italian news reported that 136 witnesses have been called from prosecutors, including Ruby herself and 32 other women allegedly working as prostitutes during Berlusconi’s villa parties.