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Official asked to change teen's birth date

Israel's President Shimon Peres watches Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (L) embrace the Israeli singer Rita after her performance at a lunch held in the honour of Berlusconi at the President's Residence in Jerusalem on February 03, 2010. UPI/Miriam Alster/Pool
1 of 4 | Israel's President Shimon Peres watches Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (L) embrace the Israeli singer Rita after her performance at a lunch held in the honour of Berlusconi at the President's Residence in Jerusalem on February 03, 2010. UPI/Miriam Alster/Pool | License Photo

ROME, March 11 (UPI) -- A Moroccan official said she was offered money to alter the birth date of the teenager in the sex scandal surrounding Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The Moroccan official reportedly was promised "a large amount of money" to change the birth date of Karima El Mahroug, known professionally as Ruby the Heart Stealer. Berlusconi is accused of paying her for sex when she was 17 and allegedly working as a prostitute, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.

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Berlusconi is scheduled to go to trial on the charges April 6. Having sex with a prostitute under the age of 18 is a crime in Italy, punishable by up to three years in prison.

The unidentified Moroccan registry official told the Italian newspaper Il Fatto she was approached in February by three men in her office in Fkih Ben Salah, the town where Mahroug was born. She said she was asked if she could backdate the exotic dancer's birth certificate by two years.

Lawyers for Berlusconi called the claims "laughable." Opposition parties, however, demanded an investigation into the allegations.

Berlusconi has denied the charges, saying they were prompted by politics.

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