Quote:Berlusconi denies paying for sex



Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has denied allegations he paid prostitutes who attended parties at his official residencies.

In an interview with Italian gossip magazine Chi, the 72-year-old leader insisted he had never paid for sex.

He alleged a prostitute at the centre of the scandal had been paid to make false accusations against him.

Mr Berlusconi's personal life has been under close public scrutiny since his wife filed for divorce last month.

This is the first time Mr Berlusconi has spoken at length about some of the most serious accusations involving his private life.

An Italian model, Patrizia D'Addario, said last week she had been paid more than $1,000 (£609, 720 euros) to attend a party in his residence in Rome, in the company of other women.

“ I never understood where the satisfaction is when you're missing the pleasure of conquest ”
Silvio Berlusconi
Ms D'Addario alleged she was asked to return and eventually spent the night with the prime minister.

In an interview with Chi, one of Italy's most popular gossip magazines, Mr Berlusconi said he had never paid for sex.

He added: "I never understood where the satisfaction is when you're missing the pleasure of conquest."

And he attacked Ms D'Addario, saying she had been "extremely well paid" by someone to produce false accusations against him.

But she has denied this.

"If Mr Berlusconi has the slightest proof backing his claims he must present them to legal authorities," she told the Ansa news agency.

"If this is not the case, he should not be making such claims."

Under pressure

Mr Berlusconi has been under pressure since his wife, Veronica Lario, filed for divorce after 19 years of marriage, accusing him of improper relations with a young woman.

She criticised her husband for "consorting with minors" and attacked his decision to attend the 18th birthday party of an aspiring TV actress and model.

He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

He faced further scandal when photos were published of topless women and a naked man at his villa on the island of Sardinia.

The prime minister said he could not be blamed for the bad behaviour of others and there was nothing in his private life he should be ashamed of or should apologise for.

Mr Berlusconi has not faced much public indignation in Italy, although the drama surrounding his private life is generating a lot of coverage in those parts of the media he does not control.

Correspondents say many Italians admire Mr Berlusconi for his success - the power, the money and the chance to surround himself with beautiful women if he so chooses.

In recent local and European elections, his Freedom People's party did well, grabbing a few cities from the opposition.

David Guyatt Wrote:Arrogant Berlusconi snubs Merkel by talking on his mobile at NATO summit.

Gosh, do you think the corrupt mafiosi was talking to:

a) his mistress?

b) his hooker?

c) his Godfather?

Watch and weep...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5B3r7Py2h4

Quote:Fabrizio Cicchitto, the leader of Berlusconi's party in the lower house of parliament, blamed the outcome on a "process of politicisation of the court which is joining the line of attack against prime minister Berlusconi".

As the judges were deliberating, Berlusconi's leading ally, the Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, warned them not to "defy the anger of the peoples [of Italy]" and vowed that, if the law were rejected, "we will enter into action, bringing out the people".

For years Berlusconi has claimed that he is the victim of a plot by leftwing judges and prosecutors, and his followers had argued that the immunity bill was needed to protect him.

Quote:Silvio Berlusconi defiant as court throws out immunity law

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi laughs off legal proceedings against him as he loses immunity from prosecution

Berlusconi says he will defend himself against 'lies' Link to this video

Silvio Berlusconi vowed this morning to stay in office and govern with "even more grit" than before, after Italy's constitutional court threw out a law that gave him immunity from prosecution for as long as he remained prime minister.


John Hooper reports that Italy's constitutional court has ditched Berlusconi's immunity Link to this audio In a morning radio interview, Berlusconi dismissed legal proceedings against him as "laughable" and "absurd" and said he would show his accusers what he was made of in court.

His defiance raised the prospect of a protracted political stand-off. Berlusconi's allies have already claimed that the decision by the country's top court represents a political plot to undermine the prime minister.

Berlusconi insisted he would not stand aside. "The government will forge ahead calmly, tranquilly and with even more grit than before because this will be absolutely indispensable for freedom and democracy in this country," he said.

"The two trials against me are false, laughable, absurd, and I will show this to Italians by going on television and I will defend myself in the courtroom and make my accusers look ridiculous and show everyone what stuff they are made of and what stuff I am made of."

Berlusconi faced a string of legal cases against his business interests when the law was brought in last year, and the constitutional court ruling raised the prospect of him becoming entangled once again in court proceedings instead of running the country.

Berlusconi, who is already struggling to contain the damage from a lurid sex and drugs scandal in which he is accused of using the services of prostitutes, has long claimed that he is the victim of a plot by leftwing judges and prosecutors. His supporters argued that the immunity bill was needed to protect him.

The court's decision marks the second time in five years that Italy's most august tribunal has rejected an attempt by the right to put its leader above the law.

The detailed reasoning behind the judges' decision will not be released for several weeks. But the statement said they had agreed that the immunity law violated not only article 3, which guarantees equality before the law, but also article 138, which sets out the procedure for a constitutional change.

The government will now have to decide whether to try again to furnish its leader with immunity by reforming the constitution. That requires either a popular referendum or a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament.

A trial in Milan in which Berlusconi is charged with tax evasion, suspended last year after parliament approved the immunity law, can now resume. Having passed the age of 70, however, the prime minister can no longer be jailed even if found guilty.

His resumed prosecution will nevertheless be an embarrassment at a time when his government is leading a high-profile campaign against tax dodgers, and offering an amnesty to Italians who have salted money abroad to avoid tax.

The judges' decision could also mean Berlusconi is again put on trial for allegedly bribing David Mills, the husband of the Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell. The British lawyer is due to launch an appeal today against a four-and-a-half year jail sentence for accepting $600,000 (£375,000) in return for skewing his testimony in two cases in which Berlusconi was a defendant in the 1990s.

The prime minister was scratched from the trial because of the immunity law, but the court ruled in May that he had given the bribe. The case against him would have to be started again and is likely to be "timed out" by a statute of limitations before the judges have a chance to reach a verdict.

A more important consequence of yesterday's decision will be to give a new relevance to two investigations in which Berlusconi is a suspect. Allegations are being investigated that he "bought" two MPs with the aim of bringing down Italy's last centre-left government, although charges are unlikely to be laid against him. In the second investigation, he is accused of embezzlement and tax evasion in both Italy and the US, and that case is thought likely to proceed.

Dario Franceschini, the leader of Italy's biggest opposition group, the Democratic party, said the constitutional court had re-established the principle of the equality of citizens before the law. "Everyone is equal before the law, even the powerful," he said.

The act that was ruled unconstitutional offered immunity from prosecution to the four top state officials: the president, the speakers of the two chambers of parliament and the prime minister.

The controversy over the role of the judiciary reached fever pitch after an announcement by a judge in Milan on Saturday that he had awarded damages of €750m (£690m) against Berlusconi's Fininvest group.

The company at the apex of the prime minister's business empire was told to pay damages to the CIR group as compensation for having bribed a judge to ensure it won a battle for control of the publishing group Mondadori. Berlusconi's lawyer was convicted of buying that judge two years ago.

In the recent ruling, Judge Raimondo Mesiano ruled that Italy's prime minister had been "jointly responsible" for the offence.



Clean Hands put pressure on prime minister

Nowhere have judges and prosecutors had such an impact on politics as in contemporary Italy. In the early 1990s, the country's political order was overthrown by a vast inquiry into party corruption known as the Clean Hands investigation. By the time the inquiry had run its course, the then Socialists' leader, Bettino Craxi, was a fugitive from justice and the Christian Democrat party, which had dominated government for almost 50 years, was in ruins.

The Clean Hands inquiry also marked the start of Silvio Berlusconi's legal problems. He has since been repeatedly charged with, but never convicted of, a string of alleged offences. Today's judgment will reignite a debate at the centre of Italian politics: whether, as Italy's prime minister claims, the judiciary's prominent role is a consequence of its infiltration by leftwingers after 1968, or, as his critics insist, a reflection of its much-needed independence in a society riddled with cronyism.

Quote:Silvio Berlusconi: I am inferior to no one in history

As Silvio Berlusconi yesterday tried to shore up his position by declaring himself irreplaceable as Italy's head of government, a court in Milan was told it had been "amply demonstrated" that he was guilty of bribery.

"I am, and not only in my own opinion, the best prime minister who could be found today," he told a press conference. "I believe there is no one in history to whom I should feel inferior. Quite the opposite."

The problem, he explained, was that "In absolute terms, I am the most legally persecuted man of all times, in the whole history of mankind, worldwide, because I have been subjected to more than 2,500 court hearings and I have the good luck – having worked well in the past and having accumulated an important wealth – to have been able to spend more than €200m in consultants and judges ... I mean in consultants and lawyers."

Quote:Silvio Berlusconi mistakenly says he has been paying millions to judges

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, on Friday made an embarrassing gaffe when he said he had spent millions of euros on "judges" as part of an impassioned plea that he was the most persecuted man in history.

Mr Berlusconi quickly corrected his mistake, clarifying that as a result of the multiple investigations in which he had been embroiled he had spent 200 million euros on "consultants and lawyers". But the slip has added poignancy since it came just six days after Fininvest, Mr Berlusconi's holding company, was ordered to pay almost £700 million in damages to a rival firm after being found guilty of bribing a judge. The case dated back to a takeover battle in the 1990s.

Quote:...Silvio Berlusconi yesterday tried to shore up his position by declaring himself irreplaceable as Italy's head of government.

Quote:Silvio Berlusconi mistakenly says he has been paying millions to judges.

Quote:Silvio Berlusconi plans taskforce to fight bad press over sex and legal woes

Foreign media to be bombarded with good news about Silvio Berlusconi and Italy

Unsatisfied with his direct and indirect control over most of Italy's media, Silvio Berlusconi has devised a campaign to stop the world's press sniping at him over his sex life and legal woes.

An emergency taskforce is to be established within a month to monitor airwaves and news-stands the world over for coverage of Italy and bombard foreign newsrooms with good news about the country.

The plan was announced by the tourism minister, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, who said a crack team of young journalists and communications experts would be assembled to stamp out bad news.

"Their first job will be to monitor all the foreign press, including dailies, periodicals and TV in every latitude, from Japan to Peru," she told Corriere della Sera today.

The second task will be to "bombard those newsrooms with truthful and positive news", and reveal to the world "a generous, truthful and audacious Italy – the Italy of entrepreneurs, art, cultural events and our products".

Berlusconi attacked the foreign press yesterday for criticising himself and Italy, days after the country's constitutional court stripped him of legal immunity, a ruling which means he again faces prosecution for fraud and bribing British tax adviser David Mills.

According to Brambilla, Berlsuconi's problems with the law are not in any way blackening Italy's reputation. Instead she blamed "an anti-Italian group working against Italy with the single aim of discrediting and destroying the prime minister".

Berlusconi, who owns Italy's largest private television network and has indirect influence over the state RAI network, has said he will now make radio and TV appearances to explain to Italians why his upcoming trials are "farcical".

A spokeswoman at the tourism ministry said a taskforce to revive Italy's image had previously been set up during Naples's rubbish crisis, when tonnes of putrid waste spilled through the streets.

A former beauty contestant and entrepreneur, Brambilla also worked as a journalist with one of the prime minister's TV channels before founding the Freedom TV channel in 2007, which attacked the then centre-left government and rallied for Berlusconi's return to office.

Brambilla said today that Italian exports were suffering as a result of the country's bad press. "Exporters are worried because it is only news of the shameful attacks on Berlusconi that reach abroad. This affects national appeal and we cannot allow that."

Quote:Silvio Berlusconi linked to mafia in court evidence
Jailed hitman says clan boss boasted of ties before Italian PM entered politics

Tom Kington in Rome guardian.co.uk,
Friday 4 December 2009 17.53 GMT

A jailed mafia hitman has linked Silvio Berlusconi to Sicily's Cosa Nostra, telling a Turin court that a clan boss convicted for a spate of deadly bombings boasted of ties to Berlusconi in the early 1990s, just before the Italian prime minister entered politics.

Gaspare Spatuzza, a mob killer turned state witness, said today that boss Giuseppe Graviano told him Berlusconi and his business partner Marcello Dell'Utri had "practically placed the country in our hands".

Spatuzza spoke from behind a hospital screen and a line of police officers in an underground courtroom during an appeal launched by Dell'Utri, now a senator in Berlusconi's Freedom People party, against his nine-year sentence for collaborating with the mafia.

Spatuzza said Graviano met him at a cafe on Rome's Via Veneto in early 1994 where he described Berlusconi and Dell'Utri as "serious people" who had helped the mafia.

Media mogul Berlusconi was elected prime minister later that year. He is not involved in the current trial.

Pressed on what deal had been struck, Spatuzza said he had no information.

A spokesman for Berlusconi said Spatuzza's evidence proved the mafia wanted revenge for the current clampdown on Italy's mafia organisations, which has seen the arrest of 15 of Italy's top 30 most wanted bosses and seizures of assets running to ¤8m a day.

Spatuzza is not "an anti-mafia informant but a real mafioso", said Dell'Utri.

Turning his back on a murderous career in which he reportedly ate a sandwich while stirring a vat of acid containing the bones of a victim, Spatuzza claims he discovered religion after his arrest in 1997. "I was at a crossroads," he said in court, "either God or Cosa Nostra".

Berlusconi reportedly said today that Spatuzza's claims were part of an "absurd trap" against him. "Berlusconi is more afraid of his wife than Spatuzza," said Dell'Utri, referring to Berlusconi's current divorce proceedings.

The prime minister is meanwhile facing two trials after Italy's constitutional court threw out his bid to pass an immunity law.

Berlusconi was due in the dock today for the opening of his trial for bribing British lawyer David Mills, but a judge adjourned proceedings to allow the prime minister to attend a cabinet meeting.

The next hearing is now scheduled for 15 January.

A prosecution source today said that the delay would not increase the risk of the trial being timed out under Italy's statute of limitations as the "clock" would be stopped until the next court date.

Mills has already been sentenced to four and a half years in prison, pending an appeal, for accepting a $600,000 bribe in 1997 to withhold evidence about Berlusconi's business dealings.

Quote:Statuette used to hit Berlusconi does brisk trade


Italian PM hit in the face with a model of Milan's cathedral



Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:41am EST
MILAN, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Souvenir vendors reported brisk business on Tuesday in statuettes of Milan's cathedral like the one hurled at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in an attack at the weekend.

BONDS

"Sales have definitely gone up," stall owner Mario said in the cathedral square where the attack took place on Sunday.

"People are definitely buying it as a souvenir of the event, it seems to be one of the most popular Christmas gifts."

A spiky replica of the gothic Duomo was used by an Italian man with a history of mental illness to strike 73-year-old Berlusconi in the face, breaking his nose, two of his teeth and gashing his lip.

The Italian conservative leader, who was hit while signing autographs after a political rally, will be released from hospital on Wednesday. Doctors say he will need two weeks' rest and was badly shaken by the assault.

While there was an outpouring of sympathy for Berlusconi, tourists were taking a macabre interest in the statuettes like the one used to attack him.

"I had to get a souvenir, it will be a Christmas gift," said Brazilian tourist Manuel Magalhaes.

The souvenirs come in different materials, with the heavier marble model costing about 10 euros and the lighter resin model 5-6 euros. It was not clear which one was used by Berlusconi's assailant, 42-year-old Massimo Tartaglia.

"People keep passing by and picking it up to see how heavy it is, to see if the weight of the object could really have caused all that physical damage to Berlusconi," said Mantuzzi.

(Reporting by Reuters Television; writing by Stephen Brown: Editing by Angus MacSwan)