Silvio Berlusconi found guilty in sex trial Silvio Berlusconi has been sentenced to seven years in prison and banned from holding public office for life at the conclusion of a sex and abuse-of-office trial that is likely to raise tensions between the two main parties in Italy's fragile coalition government. A Milan court on Monday found the 76-year-old former prime minister and leader of the People of Liberty party guilty on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute - Karima el-Mahroug, a Moroccan nightclub dancer - and abuse of office when, as prime minister in 2010, he put pressure on a chief of police to free the teenager from detention on suspicion of theft. Mr Berlusconi denounced the verdict as "incredible" and accused the court of issuing a sentence of "such violence never experienced before in an attempt to eliminate me from the political life of this country." In a statement he declared his innocence and his intention to resist "such persecution." Nicola Ghedini, Mr Berlusconi's defence lawyer, called the sentence "beyond logic" and said the former prime minister, now a senator, would appeal. Italy's judicial system has a lengthy two-stage appeals system and the sentence, if confirmed, will not be enforced until that process is exhausted. It was Mr Berlusconi's third criminal conviction since March in separate trials, which he has repeatedly denounced as part of a leftwing conspiracy by a biased judiciary to destroy his political career after leading Italy's centre-right for nearly 20 years. The billionaire media mogul - who saw shares in his Mediaset company plunge by more than 5 per cent on Monday - says his court battles will have no impact on his party's continued support for Italy's coalition government, which it formed with prime minister Enrico Letta's Democratic party in April to break a post-election deadlock. But given Mr Berlusconi's renowned unpredictability and the anger of his supporters at the sentence, few expect that it will be business as usual for the government, which is already deeply split over the centre-right's demands for tax cuts a stretched budget cannot easily afford. Angelino Alfano, deputy prime minister and a Berlusconi loyalist, said the sentence was worse than expected - the prosecution had demanded a six-year jail term - and went against the "common sense of justice." Mr Alfano said he had called Mr Berlusconi, who did not attend the court hearing, and urged him not to give up. "Milan has become Tehran," remarked Giuliano Ferrara, a newspaper editor and former Berlusconi spokesman. Both Mr Berlusconi and Ms Mahroug, known by her stage name Ruby Heart-Stealer, denied having sex. Mr Berlusconi argued that he had called the Milan police station at the time of her detention as he feared a diplomatic incident, falsely believing at the time that she was the granddaughter of Hosni Mubarak, then president of Egypt. Last month Mr Berlusconi lost his first appeal in a separate trial on charges of tax fraud involving Mediaset, a case likely to come to a final conclusion late this year when the Court of Cassation hears his second appeal against a four-year jail term and a five-year ban on holding public office. In March he was convicted in a wiretapping case related to a takeover battle, with political overtones, of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. "Hawks" within Mr Berlusconi's party have called for a tough response to his court cases, including a possible mass resignation of their members of parliament. "The outlook for the current coalition government must now be bleak," said Christopher Duggan, professor of Italian history at Reading university. He said Mr Berlusconi had expected a "quid pro quo" in exchange for giving Italy a workable government after the impasse resulting from February's elections, when both parties lost considerable votes to the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. In a separate trial of three alleged pimps accused of setting up a prostitution racket for Mr Berlusconi at "bunga bunga" parties at his private villa, Ms Mahroug testified that she was paid up to €3,000 for attending each time and also received €30,000 from her host to set up a beauty salon. Ms Mahroug, who was 17 at the time of the offences, said aspiring showgirls dressed as sexy nuns and nurses performing striptease acts. ● Mr Letta's two-month-old coalition government suffered its first casualty on Monday when Josefa Idem, from the prime minister's Democratic party, resigned as equal opportunities and sports minister. Ms Idem, a German-born former Olympic canoe medallist, attacked what she called an aggressive media campaign against her after it emerged she had falsely declared in her tax return that a gymnasium she owned was her residence.