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One night in Silvio Berlusconi's "harem"

Oh Silvio, not in front of the guards

'Lesbian' clinch more embarrassment for Berlusconi

Berlusconi urged to attend clinic for sex addiction

Daughters' spat spoils Berlusconi family holiday

The chasm between Berlusconi and reality

L'ALFABETO DEGLI ANIMALI

Silvio Berlusconi squares up for legal dogfight

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New York Times, 15 aprile, 2001

IN ITALIA, BERLUSCONI DI NUOVO IN LIZZA

da  ALESSANDRA STANLEY

L' uomo più ricco in Italia ha fatto due piccole cose sulla sua strada verso un congresso politico internazionale sulla Costa Azzurra. Prima di imbarcarsi sul suo jet Gulfstream, Silvio Berlusconi si è fermato al tribunale di Milano in cui era stato chiamato per testimoniare in un processo a due dei suoi impiegati, imputati nel 1994 di falsa testimonianza. (Non ha risposto a nessuna domanda, tuttavia, fornendo una versione italiana del Quinto Emendamento degli Stati Uniti, in quanto sarebbe stato suo diritto non rispondere, poichè è imputato in un caso collegato di corruzione.)

Quando è uscito, circondato da un orda sgomitante di portaborse, guardie del corpo e giornalisti, ha fatto una pausa abbastanza lunga per aiutare una donna sventurata. Lei gli aveva afferrato la manica ed elemosinato aiuto, spiegando in lacrime che aveva lasciato il suo compagno, non aveva lavoro o casa e rischiava di farsi togliere il suo bammbino di cinque anni dalle assistenti sociali. Berlusconi immediatamente l' ha invitata ad Arcore, nella sua residenza settecentesca fuori Milano. "Oggi, " le ha detto con la magnanimità tipica di un conduttore di giochi a premi, "oggi è il suo giorno fortunato."
Era un momento classico di Berlusconi, che mescola la beneficenza da padrone del Vecchio Mondo con un senso più moderno dei media. Il suo giorno in tribunale fa parte di una saga processuale infinita che annoia la maggior parte dei italiani, stufi della mole di notizie superficiali che ricevono in proposito. I media si sono appuntati invece su Filomena Esposito, 33 anni, che con suo figlio piccolo (ed altri parenti nel rimorchio), ha ricevuto in effetti consiglio e, infine, cinque milioni in denaro, un biglietto per la partita e un pallone del Milan dall' uomo più occupato nella politica italiana.

 Silvio Berlusconi, 64 anni , è un miliardario fattosi da sé, la cui azienda di gestione finanziaria, Fininvest, possiede, tra l'altro, la squadra di calcio del Milan e le tre più grandi reti televisive private del paese. Come capo di Forza Italia, il partito conservatore che avanza, che lui ha fatto crescere da zero, sta preparandosi fiduciosamente a essere il prossimo primo ministro dell' Italia dopo le elezioni parlamentari del mese prossimo. Se riesce, come ampiamente è previsto, segnerebbe una rivincita, un ritorno al potere dopo che il suo primo governo conservatore sprofondò nel 1994 dopo soli sette mesi turbolenti di gestione.

Allora l' Italia, oberata da un'economia gonfia di debiti, era il fanalino di coda dell' Europa. Pochi credevano che il paese potesse mai ristorare le sue finanze abbastanza per qualificarsi per entrare nell' euro. Ci riuscì, a mala pena, nel 1998. Quando Berlusconi aveva lasciato il governo, il paese era alle prese con Tangentopoli ("bribesville"), una vasta indagine penale sulla corruzione politica e finanziaria che aveva traumatizzato la nazione e alla fine aveva rovesciato l' intera classe politica che aveva governato l' Italia senza interruzione fin dalla conclusione della Seconda Guerra mondiale.
L' Italia è cambiata in questi ultimi sette anni e così Berlusconi: entrambi sono poco un più calmi, meglio organizzati e più in sintonia con il resto d' Europa. Ma la politica italiana rimane inutilmente barocca. E così fa Berlusconi.

È facilmente messo in caricatura, ma non si può né sottacerlo né definirlo in modo preciso. La sua piattaforma economica suona familiare -una miscela di riduzioni di imposta e di capitalismo del libero mercato, presi in prestito da Margaret Thatcher e Ronald Reagan. Il suo stile regal-populistico, tuttavia, è più allarmante, persino per gli standard americani: emerge come uno Steve Forbes legato a doppio filo con un tocco di Eva Peron.

Per i sette anni ultimi, come guida dell' opposizione, ha tenuto la scena come il più assiduo avversario dell' assillato governo di sinistra. Promettendo di liberarsi di ciò che chiama la camicia di forza di tasse, burocrazia e regolamentazioni dello Stato, Berlusconi dice che desidera mettere a nudo l' inefficiente Stato  italiano e renderlo un modello per il resto d' Europa. Gli italiani sono meno ottimisti, ma anelano al cambiamento, a patto che non sia troppo tumultuouso. Berlusconi descrive la sua candidatura come "sacrificio," il suo "regalo" alla gente italiana. Dice che crede genuinamente che lui -e lui da solo- possa trasformare la nazione. L' Italia ha bisogno d'un imprenditore, lui dice agli elettori, non di un amabile conversatore.

 Berlusconi, come accade, è tutt'e due; il suo fascino è leggendario, un fascio improvviso e alto di calore ed attenzione che ti avvolge. "L' America? Amo l' America," gorgoglia ad un giornalista americano in una stanza di ricevimento oro-e-crema del palazzo barocco del 17° secolo che è il suo pied-à-terre romano. "Sono da qualunque parte  sia l'America, persino prima che io sappia di che si tratti".

Ride di sé mentre parla, il genere di buonumore che ti aggancia,  comune agli italiani migliori - l' arte di ridere delicatamente rivolgendosi al lato debole degli altri, mentre li coinvolge nello scherzo. Ma Berlusconi parla anche con millanteria, una nota di autoesagerazione senza freno, che tiene lontana molta gente comune.
Berlusconi recentemente ha riconosciuto coi giornalisti che non ha mai acquistato padronanza dell' inglese e conosce soltanto francese, latino e greco. "Sono un erudito greco," ha detto. "Ero solito tirar fuori versi greci dalla mia testa." Quell' esuberanza, con il suo patriottismo reaganiano condito di sventolanti bandiere -tabù in Italia dai giorni di Mussolini- fa arricciare il naso all' intelligentsia italiana.

Berlusconi ha persino ha inventato una parola per descriversi -entusiasmatore- un aggettivo che traduce la sua alta capacità di venditore porta a porta, che lo ha aiutato a crescere da speculatore immobiliare di Milano a tycoon più ricco d' Italia. La sua fortuna, valutata a 12,8 miliardi di dollari, gli ha guadagnato il quattordicesimo posto nella lista di Forbes' Magazine della gente più ricca del mondo. Ha creato il suo settore -e molta della sua ricchezza- fondando le prime reti televisive commerciali in Italia, vi ha introdotto i quiz con striptease, ha mandato in onda soap-opera americane per i telespettatori italiani.

Il suo avversario nelle elezioni, Francesco Rutelli, 46 anni, ex-sindaco di Roma, offre una piattaforma progressista che è una versione più morbida del programma di Berlusconi: riduzioni di imposta più prudenti e una liberalizzazione costante dell' economia. Ma la coalizione di sinistra in Italia è così internamente divisa ed instabile (quattro governi e tre primi ministri durante gli ultimi cinque anni) che solo i sondaggisti di Rutelli -tra cui Stanley Greenberg, un consigliere di campagna di Al Gore, Tony Blair ed Ehud Barak- esprimono molta fiducia.

Berlusconi, d' altra parte, dice che è così sicuro della vittoria che già sta prendendo contatto con i primi ministri europei, cercando una legittimazione internazionale che non ha conquistato col suo primo governo. Effettivamente, l' Europa è assai diffidente circa vari aspetti d'un governo Berlusconi. La sua coalizione di centro-destra include gli ex fascisti, condotti da Gianfranco Fini, così come Umberto Bossi, il volatile leader della Lega Nord. Finora nella campagna, Bossi ha mantenuto il suo comportamento migliore, ma la sua piattaforma e le sue passate posizioni sono venate di sentimenti anti-immigrati e antiomosessuali, troppo vicini, per soprammercato,  a quelli di Jörg Haider, leader della destra in  Austria.

Ed poi c'è la questione dei soldi di Berlusconi. Tranne che scrollare le spalle trattando l'argomento come attacco politico, Berlusconi non ha riconosciuto mai il conflitto di interesse rappresentato dalle sue tre reti TV, oltre a una casa cinematografica, il gruppo editoriale più forte in Italia, e una rete finanziaria che si articola tra assicurazioni, proprietà immobiliari e  banche. Ha detto che riporterà in aula una sua proposta fatta  in Parlamento nel 1994, per risolvere la materia, ma è difficile capire come. La televisione di Stato è stata privatizzata un poco, ma i suoi quadri dirigenti sono ancora dei beneficiari politici, e Berlusconi potrebbe prendere possesso del governo e con esso di tutte le maggiori reti TV in Italia -pubbliche e private- mettendosele in tasca.

Ha parlato di affidare i suoi beni ad un' amministrazione fiduciaria, "cieca", ma ciò che realmente sembrano desiderare gli italiani è di eleggerlo con fede cieca. "Gli italiani pensano due cose e questo viene fuori nei gruppi di riflessione," dice. "Uno, che è meglio mandare al governo qualcuno  che non deve rubare, perchè è già ricco. E pensano che chiunque sia sotto i riflettori non possa mai rischiare di andare contro l' interesse generale per favorire i suoi propri interessi." Diventando furibondo, aggiunge: "non vedo come si può pensare che sia possibile fare qualcosa contro gli interessi degli altri e a mio favore. È impossibile! Impossibile! Immediatamente perderei il mio consenso. È un non-problema, un problema falso".

I suoi sostenitori, tuttavia, la mettono diversamente, sostenendo che ciò che è buono per Fininvest potrebbe essere buono per il paese. "Lui conosce bene il suo mestiere," dice Carolo Corassa, un agricoltore prosperoso dell' Emilia-Romagna che ha partecipato ad un convegno agricolo sulla malattia della mucca-pazza a Roma. Corassa si è alzato ed ha applaudito vigorosamente quando Berlusconi è entrato, con un' abbronzatura  doppia dei coltivatori presenti. "Se può fare del bene per gli Italiani mentre fa qualcosa di buono per i suoi affari," dice l' agricoltore, "questo va benissimo anche per me."

Berlusconi ha un grande fascino, se il pubblico è una stanza piena di "seniors," di Forza Italia, un gruppo dei membri più importanti del suo partito, o una conferenza stampa con i giornalisti meno dotati. Parlando della sua promessa elettorale di aumentare le pensioni minime, si è seduto ad un tavolo con dietro un manifesto gigante della campagna, e ha messo in campo tranquillamnete le questioni circa i suoi problemi di conflitto di interessi, le proposte di tagli alle tasse e sui suoi dubbi alleati politici. Nel corso della conferenza stampa, un signore si è levato in piedi, si è presentato come giornalista di un mensile oscuro, L'Attualità e ha portato avanti una lunga diatriba circa la decisione della maggiore compagnia telefonica di licenziare migliaia di operai. (Di fatto, gli operai non sono stati licenziati ma soltanto messi in cassa integrazione a paga quasi completa. Il licenziamento degli operai in Italia è estremamente difficile, una delle inflessibilità del mercato del lavoro che Berlusconi promette di riparare.)

Berlusconi ha ignorato queste contestazioni, esprimendo invece la sua ammirazione per lo scrittore antifascista Gaetano Salvemini, i cui i seguaci hanno fondato L'Attualità. Allora ha citato una frase di Salvemini, che deride la mentalità degli industriali italiani: "I profitti sono solo per noi, ma le perdite vanno ripartite fra tutti." Berlusconi ha fatto una pausa ed allora ha proclamato, "quando saremo al potere, queste cose non accadranno. "
In un' Italia che tiene allo stile, l' attenzione di Berlusconi all' immagine è molto alta. E' alto soltanto un metro e settanta, ed è cosciente di ciò. Quando si siede  ad una conferenza stampa, i suoi assistenti gli fanno scivolare sotto un cuscino per essere sicuri che la sua altezza si allinei con le altre. Quando posa per una foto di gruppo, Berlusconi sale sulla punta dei piedi appena prima che scatti il flash.

C' è una strategia elettorale sotto questo stare impettito, tuttavia. Berlusconi è stato in cura per un cancro alla prostata nel 1997, un fatto che ha rivelato soltanto l'anno scorso, spiegando che ha completamente recuperato. Nella corsa contro Rutelli, un avversario telegenico che è quasi 20 anni più giovane, Berlusconi a volte scherza su questa differenza, ma più che altro tiene a sottacerla. "I miei medici mi dicono che ho il fisico di un quarantenne," ha assicurato fiero ad un intervistatore della televisione.

Berlusconi sa quanto è importante una bella apparenza per gli italiani. "Capisce le debolezze degli italiani perchè le condivide," dice Indro Montanelli, 91 anni, columnist conservatore molto seguito in Italia. Montanelli ha diretto Il Giornale, giornale di Berlusconi, ma è stato mandato via perchè non riusciva a prestare un sufficiente supporto alle ambizioni politiche del suo boss. "Mi sono divertito un sacco con Berlusconi," ricorda Montanelli, quasi meditabondo. "Non potete immaginare la sua capacità di mentire. Non vi vuole necessariamente truffare, lo fa solo per puro gusto. Persuade se stesso, e allo stesso tempo vi convince. Ma è un brillante venditore - può convincere gli italiani che porterà a termine promesse che non si possono mantenere."

 Ha convinto abbastanza elettori nel 1994 per essere votato, ma il suo governo non-pronto-per-la prima-serata è sprofondato rapidamente sotto il peso delle indagini penali che lo hanno raggiunto anche da primo ministro. Affronta ancora processi con accuse di corruzione, ma per le sue traversie giudiziarie lamenta una vasta cospirazione della sinistra. La maggior parte degli italiani in realtà non se ne preoccupa, sia perchè condividono l'idea che i magistrati hanno moventi politici, sia perchè ritengono che Berlusconi abbia soltanto preso le stesse scorciatoie illegali della maggior parte degli imprenditori negli anni 80 e anni 90 per avere successo negli affari, secondo lo stile italiano.

Nel più umiliante momento della sua vita pubblica, Berlusconi ha ricevuto un avviso di garanzia, (una notifica ufficiale che era sottoposto a indagine penale), mentre presiedeva un congresso internazionale sul crimine  organizzato a Napoli. Berlusconi si riferisce ancora rimuginando a ciò che è avvenuto come "golpe" e parla appassionatamente della minaccia rossa, tanto che uno deve pizzicarsi per ricordarsi che il partito comunista italiano ha perso la sua occasione nel 1948 e non ha mai avuto una probabilità di erigere gulags sul Lago di Garda. "Non vede gli attacchi contro di lui come un solo fatto politico," spiega il suo portavoce, Paolo Bonaiuti, " per lui, tutto è molto personale."

Tuttavia, quando nel dicembre 1994 si è dimesso, è accaduto per una rivolta casalinga. Bossi, il suo attuale alleato nella coalizione, aveva ritirato il suo appoggio in Parlamento, chiamando Berlusconi "un dittatore" e "Berluskaiser." Berlusconi ha corso ancora nel 1996 ma ha perso con Romano Prodi, che, come Berlusconi nel 1994, si era presentato come un "esterno" ma aveva portato un bagaglio ideologico e personale di profilo molto più basso.

Prodi ed i suoi successori sono riusciti a raddrizzare le finanze dell' Italia. Ma sforzi importanti per aggiustare il sistema delle pensioni, riformare le leggi elettorali o migliorare l'ordinamento giudiziario sono stati contrastati sia dall' opposizione di centro-destra che dagli stessi litigiosi alleati  della coalizione che ha aggregato un arco ideologico che andava dai centristi cattolici ai comunisti.

L' economia italiana, composta sopratutto da piccole aziende familiari, ha avuto vigorose transenne regolative, limitazioni imposte dallo stato e imposte alte, come uno sciatore zoppicante che affronta lo slalom. Ma la sua produttività è indietro rispetto alla nuova Europa. Il sistema politico italiano, attrezzato per impedire che un solo partito possa accrescersi troppo, rende quasi impossible che qualunque governo progetti le riforme necessarie e di lunga durata. L' instabilità è una costante per i governi italiani,  ce ne sono stati 58 dalla conclusione della seconda guerra mondiale.

Alcuni critici prevedono che per tutti i suoi programmi ambiziosi di sviluppo economico, progetti di lavori pubblici e modernizzazione, Berlusconi affronterà gli stessi ostacoli politici endemici dei suoi predecessori, vale a dire dovrà contare su alleati che potrebbero inglobarlo e farlo fallire.

Umberto Bossi dice che ha abbandonato il suo sogno di secessione del nord Italia in cambio della promessa di Berlusconi di introdurre un sistema federalista. Finora, Bossi si comporta come un alleato più affidabile di quanto non fosse nel passato, e dice ai suoi sostenitori che si era sbagliato su Berlusconi nel 1994 - per quanto ha l'aria di dirlo con un ammiccamento furbesco.

Lui rimane un alleato politicamente scorretto e volatile. Berlusconi dice che ha legato Bossi con tanti motivi, patti e programmi comuni che non lo abbandonerebbe mai. Ma le corde e le catene che intersecano la loro alleanza evidenziano soltanto il lato 'Houdini' di Bossi. Gli strateghi di Berlusconi ammettono che hanno bisogno della forza di Bossi nel nord per vincere un mandato di legislatura. Ma egualmente insistono che avranno tanti seggi parlamentari propri che non avranno bisogno di Bossi per governare. Bossi dice l' opposto. "Se all' ultimo minuto vorrà scaricarci, può vincere le elezioni," dice. "Ma non potrebbe governare. Dovrebbe stringere accordi con gli ex-democristiani e non potrebbe mai determinare un cambiamento reale. Senza di noi, verrà a mancare."

Berlusconi è posizionato asai meglio per governare che non nel 1994. Allora, Forza Italia era nel migliore dei casi un lento veicolo organizzato per commercializzare la sua candidatura. Ora l' ha costruito come un partito politico reale, con un' organizzazione fornita di supporto popolare e candidati credibili. Diversamente che nel 1994, la coalizione di Berlusconi ha propagandato un programma di tagli alle imposte sul reddito, di eliminazione della tassa di successione e di approvazione di altre misure significative per stimolare lo sviluppo.

Ma l' Italia non ha la stessa libertà di reindirizzare la politica economica che Reagan e Thatcher hanno potuto gestire. L' anno scorso, il rapporto in Italia tra debito pubblico e prodotto interno lordo era quasi il 110 per cento, quasi il doppio della Germania. Tutte le riduzioni di imposta dovrebbero essere compensate da tagli di spesa, per evitare uno scontro con Bruxelles. "Il governo attuale ha già tagliato significativamente le tasse," avverte Francesco Giavazzi, un economista della scuola dell' università Bocconi di Economia a Milano. "L' unico modo realistico per tagliare la spesa è riformare il sistema pensionistico. Fino a che non saprò cosa intende fare Berlusconi, rimango preoccupato."

Berlusconi ha promesso di aumentare l'assegno mensile minimo di pensione a oltre un milione di lire al mese (da circa 750.000 ora), con lo slogan "pensioni più dignitose." Ma non ha rivelato che cosa farà di un sistema pensionistico che mangia fino al 30 per cento della spesa pubblica e minaccia di sprofondare sotto il peso dell' invecchiamento della popolazione e la bassa natalità del paese.

Fuori del podio, può essere abbastanza franco sul perchè non discuterà dei suoi programmi. "Badate, l'Europa prenderà le decisioni per noi," dice. "Quando accadrà, faremo ciò che dobbiamo fare. Ma in una campagna elettorale, non discutiamo il programma, perchè non ci porterebbe voti. "

 Diventa egualmente duro se si apre l'argomento della sua fortuna e di che cosa potrebbe guadagnare una volta primo ministro. Invece, si mette a riflettere sulle attività che ha già dovuto lasciare. "Mi consenta di elencare alcune delle cose che la politica mi ha tolto." Continua a spuntare una lunga lista delle aziende che è stato scoraggiato dall' acquisire o delle quali è stato costretto a spogliarsi -Omnitel, una delle più grandi aziende di telefonia cellulare in Italia, tre stazioni di pay-TV, un' altra rete TV, stazioni radiofoniche, la divisione giornali e periodici della Mondadori, un gruppo editoriale che ha comprato nel 1990 e che allora possedeva 14 giornali, compreso La Repubblica. "Sono l' uomo d'affari che più è stato punito dalla politica nella storia della repubblica, non c'è dubbio in proposito," dice.

Richiesto se non dovrebbe rendere Fininvest acquisibile al pubblico, una mossa che gli guadagnerebbe soldi ed introdurrebbe una certa trasparenza nei rapporti d'affari delle attività della famiglia, Berlusconi si lascia andare. " No, guardi, mi scusi, ma ho lavorato tutta la mia vita," dice. "Sto facendo un favore al mio paese. Non ho bisogno di fare il presidente per il potere. Ho case dappertutto, barche stupende, compreso lo yacht di Murdoch, che ho appena comprato. Ho begli aeroplani, una bella moglie, una bella famiglia."

Aggiunge: "Sto facendo un sacrificio per il mio paese e dovrei anche privare  dei frutti del mio lavoro i miei figli? Pago a 4 miliardi di lire di tasse al giorno. Sono l' italiano che paga di più ed ancora mi vogliono punire? Che vadano tutti al diavolo."

Alessandra Stanley è il capo dell' ufficio di Roma per il New York Times 

From The Sunday Times

June 21, 2009

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One night in Silvio Berlusconi's "harem"

Former escort girl tells of dinner party at Italian premier's home, where he showed off to female guests then took her to bed

Patrizia D'Addario says Berlusconi told her to 'wait in the big bed'

John Follain in Bari

ON the night of Barack Obama’s election as US president last November, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, threw a candlelit dinner party for three beautiful women at Palazzo Grazioli, his luxurious residence in Rome.

One of the guests, a former actress and escort girl called Patrizia D’Addario, 42, says he then asked her to stay the night. Not only that, but she claims to have taped the conversation that followed.

“Go and wait for me in the big bed,” the 72-year-old billionaire is said to have told her. He was going to have a shower and change into a bathrobe.

An extract from D’Addario’s tape that was leaked to an Italian newspaper and published yesterday shows that she replied: “Yes, the big bed.”

According to D’Addario, Berlusconi’s staff reminded him that he was expected at an election night rally organised by the Italy-USA Foundation, but the prime minister stayed at home. Officials informed him later of Obama’s victory.

The next day, D’Addario says, she and Berlusconi breakfasted together and he gave her a multicoloured tortoise encrusted with precious stones, declaring: “The tortoise is a special gift I give only to you.”

Her account is the latest in a series of claims about Berlusconi’s private life that have embarrassed him and threatened to undermine his authority as he prepares to host a G8 summit next month. He has described D’Addario’s claims as “trash and falsehood”.

“I will not be swayed by these attacks and will continue to work for the good of the country,” he said.

D’Addario’s story has been supported by her friend Barbara Montereale, 23, a hostess who claims to have accompanied her to the dinner party on November 4 and to a similar event two weeks earlier.

Montereale disclosed in Italian newspaper interviews yesterday that D’Addario told her she had sex with Berlusconi on the night of Obama’s victory.

D’Addario, from Bari, southern Italy - who stood in local elections earlier this month for a party linked to Berlusconi’s, - described her alleged involvement with the prime minister in a two-hour interview last week with The Sunday Times.

She said it began when she was paid £850 to attend a dinner party with a large group of young women last October.

An elegant, green-eyed blonde with a 13-year-old daughter, D’Addario - who claimed to have worked as an assistant to David Copperfield, the magician - insisted that she could prove her story with audio tapes and footage of her visits to Berlusconi’s home.

She said that when she first walked into a large frescoed room in the residence, wearing a black Versace dress, and saw that 20 women had come for dinner, her first thought was: “But this is a harem.”

A friend she identified only as Giampaolo had asked her to come and offered her £420 - “That’s what the other girls get,” he had said - but she had insisted on £1,700, which he accepted.

She was given a ticket for a flight to Rome that day and was driven with Montereale and another woman to the residence at about 10pm. As the car approached, Giampaolo closed the tinted windows. She took a lift up to the frescoed room.

Berlusconi greeted his guests 10 minutes later with the words, “Good evening to you all”, and D’Addario was struck by how much make-up he was wearing.

“I’ve worked in the theatre and I know about make-up. He had a lot on. It made him look orange and when he laughed you could see the wrinkles,” she said.

Berlusconi walked up to D’Addario and Giampaolo - the only male guest that evening - and was introduced. “This is Alessia,” Giampaolo said, using a false name.

Berlusconi kissed her on both cheeks, stroked her arm and said: “Ciao, I’m Silvio. You are very carina [lovely].”

They sat down on a sofa as he asked her: “Where do you come from? What do you do?” She told him about a residential complex she wanted to build on her family’s land, saying she was having difficulty obtaining permits.

For more than an hour Berlusconi screened one piece of film after another for his guests, showing him at the White House with President George W Bush, at a meeting of the G8 and on the campaign trail before last year’s general election. “It was painful, boring,” D’Addario recalled.

The last film included the campaign song Meno male che Silvio c’è (I’m glad that Silvio’s here), and many of the women sang the words, waving their arms in the air in unison.

According to D’Addario’s account, Berlusconi led her by the hand to the dining room when the films ended at about 11.30pm and the other women followed.

Over a dinner of tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms, beef-burgers and potatoes, and yoghurt tart, brought by servants in livery, Berlusconi proved a relentlessly attention-grabbing host. A former cruise-ship crooner, he sang songs he had written, passed around photographs of his villas and told “very dirty” jokes.

At one point he looked across the table at D’Addario and announced: “There’s a girl who no longer trusts men and I will make her change her mind. I will fly her off on a private jet and make her see that men are not what she thinks.”

Irritated that other guests had heard this, she replied: “What are you doing - are you telling a joke about me?”

Berlusconi replied: “Yes. I know everything.”

She was convinced that he had studied her past.

During the meal he kept getting up, disappearing into another room and returning with a broad grin, laden with gifts of necklaces, pendants, rings, bracelets and other jewels - mostly shaped as butterflies - which he gave to all the women.

Towards the end he asked D’Addario for a slow dance. “We danced in front of everyone. He held me tightly, but what struck me was that he did it in front of everyone else,” she recalled.

Had Berlusconi made any other advances to her that evening? She refused to reply. Had he asked her to stay after the dinner?

“I didn’t want to stay. I was tired,” she answered. Had other women stayed? Again, she would not say.

Afterwards, Giampaolo said he would give her only £850, not the £1,700 agreed. “You made a mistake - you should have stayed,” she says she was told.

On the day of the US presidential election, however, Giampaolo contacted her again. “He wants to see you,” Giampaolo said. She was told to leave immediately.

Why had she gone? “Because I had to,” she answered, refusing to elaborate.

At about 10.30pm, she was driven into Palazzo Grazioli with Giampaolo and two young women, including Montereale. She recalled that Berlusconi had welcomed her by saying: “I’m happy to see you again. I was waiting for you.”

Then he led her to a buffet of cakes and ice-cream, telling her, unprompted, that he would solve her problem with building permits by sending two people to Bari.

As they ate, he again sang his songs, showed photographs of his villas and his family and presented the women with gifts. “I think the ritual is always like this,” she said. The same films were then screened in the same room as before.

“I stayed the night. I left in the morning after breakfast,” she said. At one point Berlusconi had left her to issue a statement on Obama’s triumph.

D’Addario said she had filmed herself standing in front of a mirror, a framed picture of Berlusconi’s estranged wife, Veronica Lario, and a bed.

Asked why she had taped her host, she said: “I felt safer filming and recording everything. And Berlusconi made me a promise; he was very sweet to me.” She added that she had had “serious problems” with a man in the past and she felt safer with a recorder.

She was driven back to a hotel, she explained. “When I opened the door of the suite, one of the two girls who had left after the dinner laughed and asked me, ‘Did you get the envelope?’ ” But D’Addario had received no such envelope.

The following evening, she said, Berlusconi rang her. According to a tape leaked to La Repubblica newspaper yesterday, he asked: “How’s it going?” She replied that her voice was a bit hoarse.

With mock surprise, he said that was strange because he had not heard “shrieks” the previous night.

Although she was picked as a local election candidate allied to Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, his promise of help with building permits failed to materialise and she turned against him.

D’Addario, Montereale and two other women have been heard as witnesses by Giuseppe Scelsi, a Bari prosecutor who is leading an investigation into Giampaolo Tarantini, a 35-year-old businessman suspected of corruption and abetting prostitution.

The women testified that they had attended parties at Berlusconi’s homes in Rome or on the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia. There is no suggestion that the prime minister has committed any offence.

In an interview yesterday, Montereale said D’Addario had stayed with Berlusconi after the second dinner “to work. All of us at the dinner knew she was an escort”. She quoted D’Addario as telling her she had had sex with Berlusconi. Her flight and hotel arrangements were identical to D’Addario’s and she, too, was paid for attending the dinners.

Montereale said she had been invited to Berlusconi’s Sardinian villa in January. She had told him about financial problems and he had given her an envelope with “a very generous amount of cash”, she claimed. She said she had never had sex with him.

Asked about her future, D’Addario hesitated a long time before saying she hoped she could build her residential complex. Did she have any regrets?

“I feel I’ve been duped. I thought that, given how Berlusconi behaved with me, he would resolve the problem for me - because he is the prime minister and because of how affectionate he was,” she said.

Prosecutor chases ‘escort providers’

Patrizia D’Addario’s account and those of other witnesses are being checked by Giuseppe Scelsi, a prosecutor in Bari who is investigating Giampaolo Tarantini and his brother Claudio over alleged corruption involving contracts awarded by local hospitals.

Telephone conversations bugged during Scelsi’s investigation reportedly indicated that Giampaolo paid women to attend parties at the homes of his business associates and friends.

Giampaolo, whose homes include a villa near Berlusconi’s in Sardinia, is said to have mentioned parties given by the prime minister to which he had been invited.

The prosecutor is checking the telephone records and travel arrangements of D’Addario and other women to find out who paid for their flights. D’Addario’s audio tapes and footage are locked in a safe.

The Tarantini brothers deny any wrongdoing.

Giampaolo Tarantini reportedly referred in one conversation to the model and actress Sabina Began, who is believed to have introduced female acquaintances of his to Berlusconi in Sardinia.

Nicknamed Berlusconi’s “queen bee”, Began allegedly picked several of the 50 young women who attended a New Year’s Eve party to see in 2008 with Berlusconi at his Sardinian villa, according to L’Espresso magazine.

Twenty guests, including actresses and showgirls, were allegedly paid £1,270 a day to be present.

Berlusconi’s lawyer Niccolo Ghedini, who is also an MP, branded the account a fantasy and threatened to sue the magazine.

A source close to the investigation said: “Scelsi’s tough. He’ll go all the way on this one.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6544035.ece

www.repubblica.it

* * *

In un'intervista di due ore al giornale britannico

la donna aggiunge particolari sulle serate a Palazzo Grazioli

La D'Addario al Sunday Times

"La mia notte nell'harem"

"C'erano 20 ragazze, il premier aveva addosso tantissimo trucco.

Ballammo stretti un lento davanti a tutti"

Patrizia D'Addario con Silvio Berlusconi

ROMA - A Palazzo Grazioli, la sera in cui Patrizia D'Addario partecipò alla prima festa, c'era "un harem". Una ventina di ragazze venute per cenare e passare la serata con Silvio Berlusconi. In un'intervista di due ore concessa al Sunday Times e pubblicata ieri, la donna che ha rivelato di essere andata nella residenza privata del presidente del consiglio a Roma almeno due volte, dietro compenso, - e di avere registrazioni e foto fatte con il telefonino per provarlo - aggiunge nuovi particolari su quelle serate.

Al giornale britannico racconta della prima cena a cui partecipa, lo scorso ottobre: una volta entrata in una stanza affrescata all'interno della residenza del presidente del Consiglio, trovatasi davanti 20 ragazze, il suo primo pensiero è: "Ma questo è un harem". Il compenso che le aveva offerto Giampaolo (Tarantini) per la sua partecipazione alla serata era di 500 euro: "quello che prendono le altre ragazze", ma lei chiede 2.000 euro e si accordano su quella cifra.

Dieci minuti dopo l'arrivo alla residenza del premier, accompagnata da Tarantini, Barbara Montereale e un'altra ragazza, appare Berlusconi dicendo "Buona sera a tutte!". E la D'Addario racconta di essere rimasta stupita dalla quantità di trucco del premier: "Ho lavorato a teatro e me ne intendo. Aveva tantissimo trucco addosso, lo faceva sembrare arancione e quando rideva si vedevano tutte le rughe".

A Berlusconi viene presentata con il nome di Alessia. Il presidente del Consiglio le dice: "Ciao, sono Silvio. Sei molto carina", baciandola sulle guance. Poi si siedono sul divano e lei racconta a Berlusconi del suo desiderio di creare un complesso residenziale su un terreno di famiglia, sul quale però ci sono dei problemi per ottenere i permessi.

Per oltre un'ora guardano filmati di Berlusconi alla Casa Bianca, in campagna elettorale, al G8. "Fu molto noioso", racconta al Sunday Times. La proiezione si conclude con la canzone "Meno male che Silvio c'è", cantata dalle ragazze, che agitano in alto le braccia insieme, come in una coreografia. Alle 11.30 si passa alla cena: tagliatelle con i porcini, hamburger di carne e patate, torta allo yogurt, servita da personale in livrea. Berlusconi intrattiene le sue ospiti, canta, racconta barzellette "molto spinte", mostra foto delle sue ville.

Ad un certo punto, racconta D'Addario, si volta verso di lei e dice. "C'è una ragazza che non ha più fiducia negli uomini. Le farò cambiare idea. La farò volare su un jet privato e le mostrerò che gli uomini non sono come lei pensa". Lei dice di essersi irritata, e di aver risposto: "Ma come, racconta una barzelletta su di me?"

E Berlusconi risponde: "Sì, so tutto". Al Times, la donna dice di essere convinta che lui sapesse cose del suo passato.

Poi, i cadeaux alle signore. Alzatosi da tavola, Berlusconi va in un'altra stanza e ritorna portando ciondoli, anelli, bracciali e collane, quasi tutti a forma di farfalla, che regala a tutte. Dopo, chiede a Patrizia D'Addario di ballare un lento. "Ballammo di fronte a tutti, mi teneva stretta, rimasi colpita dal fatto che lo facesse davanti a tutti", dice.

Alla domanda del giornalista, che le chiede se lui le fece altre avances, lei non risponde. "Le chiese di rimanere?" "Non volevo rimanere", dice D'Addario. "Qualcun'altra rimase?" "Non lo so", replica. Poi racconta di come ricevette solo 1.000 euro, invece dei 2.000 pattuiti perché non si fermò per la notte.

Nell'intervista con il giornale britannico, Patrizia D'Addario ricostruisce anche la seconda serata passata a Palazzo Grazioli, quella dell'elezione di Barack Obama, in cui invece si fermò per la notte. Arrivata con Giampaolo alla residenza romana alle 10:30, insieme ad altre due ragazze viene accolta dal premier, che le dice: "Sono contento di rivederti. Ti aspettavo". La conduce al buffet di dolci e gelati e le dice che avrebbe mandato due persone ad occuparsi del suo problema con i permessi di costruzione a Bari. Poi lo stesso rituale della volta precedente: filmati, canzoni, fotografie e regali per le ragazze. "Rimasi per la notte, la mattina facemmo colazione insieme". Al giornalista spiega che si sentiva più sicura a registrare tutto: "Berlusconi mi fece una promessa e fu molto dolce con me".

La mattina dopo, al ritorno in albergo, l'amica che era andata con lei alla cena le chiede se aveva ricevuto "la busta", lei risponde di no. Ma neppure la promessa di aiuto per costruire il residence si è materializzata. "Qualche rimpianto?", le chiede infine il giornalista inglese? "Mi sento fregata. Credevo che visto come Berlusconi si era comportato con me, risolvesse il mio problema. Perché è il primo ministro e perché è stato molto affettuoso".

(22 giugno 2009)

http://www.repubblica.it/2009/06/sezioni/politica/berlusconi-divorzio-9/daddario-sunday-times/daddario-sunday-times.html

Oh Silvio, not in front of the guards

From The Sunday Times

June 28, 2009

Silvio Berlusconi brands sex claims by Patrizia D’Addario as trash

(Rex)

Patrizua D'Addario said Silvio Berlusconi invited her to join him in the shower

John Follain

In typically flamboyant style, Silvio Berlusconi has invited the world’s press on board Europe’s largest cruise ship tomorrow to hear him announce his plans for hosting next month’s G8 summit.

Italy’s billionaire prime minister — a former cruise ship crooner — has been trying to portray himself as a statesman dedicated to solving the global economic problems. But his efforts have been undermined by fresh disclosures about his alleged night with a prostitute and explicit telephone conversations with a fixer who paid beautiful young women to attend his parties.

Patrizia D’Addario, 42, a former actress from Bari in southern Italy, says she spent the night of November 4, when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, at Palazzo Grazioli, Berlusconi’s Rome residence. She described the experience: “I never slept . . . He was tireless, a bull.”

Berlusconi, 72, has branded her account “trash and lies”, saying he did not remember her. He had never paid a woman for sex, he explained, adding: “I never understood what the satisfaction is when you are missing the pleasure of conquest.”

Accounts given to acquaintances and prosecutors led to an investigation into the alleged fixer, Giampaolo Tarantini, 34, a Bari businessman. He is suspected of abetting prostitution.

D’Addario described a dinner party that lasted until 3am and what followed. The other guests at the imposing Palazzo Grazioli were Tarantini and two young women — Barbara Montereale, 23, a model, and Lucia Rossini. After the dinner, Berlusconi led D’Addario and the two other women to another room.

“Do you remember how he caressed me while we were on the sofa? And how he caressed you and looked at me?” D’Addario asked Montereale in a telephone call recorded on June 7.

Montereale replied: “It was disgusting, he did everything in front of the bodyguards.”

Berlusconi asked D’Addario to stay and told the other two to leave. Photographs allegedly taken in Berlusconi’s bathroom by Montereale and Rossini before they left, in which they laughingly pose with a hairdryer, are timed 3.57am.

According to D’Addario, Berlusconi led her to a four-poster bed with white drapes and quilt which he said were a gift from Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister. She said he took half-a-dozen ice-cold showers during the night and she joined him at his request.

At one point D’Addario later told a friend: “He suddenly stopped moving and I thought to myself, thank God, he’s fallen asleep. But it didn’t last.”

D’Addario confided she had felt embarrassed when a staff member walked into the bedroom in the morning with a suit for the prime minister, reminding him he was due to make a statement about Obama’s victory. Berlusconi told her to wait because he wanted to have breakfast with her.

While D’Addario waited, she went to the bathroom and took photographs. She later switched her recorder on and the tape captured the voice of a man asking: “Do you want tea or coffee?” She left the residence at about 11am.

On her return to Bari that afternoon, D’Addario also recorded a call on her mobile phone. “Bambina mia \!” Berlusconi greeted her. He asked her why she sounded as though she had a hoarse voice and she explained: “It was the showers.”

D’Addario, who has a 13- year-old daughter, has given prosecutors six audio tapes, one of which was allegedly recorded that night, and which include intimate details; she also filmed the bedroom with her mobile phone.

She had already recorded parts of a dinner party at the same residence two weeks earlier which, she says, she was paid £850 to attend.

Telephone taps for the investigation into Tarantini include dozens of explicit conversations in which Berlusconi talks to him about politics, parties and above all women, the magazine L’espresso reported on Friday. Berlusconi described what kind of women — down to hair colour and vital statistics — he wanted to invite to Rome and his Villa Certosa in Sardinia.

The conversations were often coarse, with Berlusconi chatting about what had happened on party nights. In a video on the magazine’s website he wears a white dinner jacket at a Villa Certosa party on August 11, 2008, attended by some 40 guests, many of them young women. Tarantini sits opposite the prime minister.

One of the guests, Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran, sings Ordinary World to shrieks from the women. Berlusconi then sings himself. The video also shows scantily dressed young women on merry-go-round horses in the estate’s grounds.

In an interview with The Sunday Times last week, Montereale denied doing “anything erotic” at Berlusconi’s home. “Tarantini paid me for going to the party as a hostess, not as an escort girl,” she said.

She has said that Berlusconi gave her £8,500 as a gift after a party in Sardinia in January because she was struggling to make ends meet.

Prosecutors have so far questioned some 20 women who are understood to have taken part in five parties at Berlusconi’s Rome residence and at least two in Sardinia.

The prime minister exuded confidence last week, saying he had no plans to change. “The Italians want me. I have a 61% popularity rating. They want me because I’m kind, generous, sincere, loyal and I keep my promises,” he said. Three weeks ago he had boasted that private surveys showed 75% of Italians approved of him.

In his first admission that he may have made a mistake, he said: “Unfortunately we invited the wrong person and he in turn invited the wrong person. But that happens to hundreds of people.”

In an interview with the newspaper Il Giornale yesterday, Tarantini apologised to Berlusconi and said he had no idea D’Addario was a prostitute. He took beautiful women to Berlusconi’s parties only “to look good”, paying no more than their expenses, he added.

The scandal is an embarrassment to Berlusconi as he prepares for the G8 summit on July 8-10. The revelations about his private life have weakened his political position in Italy and although there is no immediate threat, allies in his centre-right coalition are privately daring to contemplate a “post-Berlusconi” era.

Insiders say Gianni Letta, Berlusconi’s undersecretary and key lieutenant, has distanced himself from the prime minister and has for several months declined his invitations to dinner.

“Berlusconi has turned into the opposite of King Midas: he dirties everything he touches,” a disaffected associate said.

The disclosures have prompted a rare public show of disapproval from within the Catholic church, with Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian bishops’ conference, admonishing in a homily: “Beware of the man who, inebriated by his desire for greatness, deludes himself into thinking he can be omnipotent and twists moral values.”

Aides to the prime minister say he is focusing on presenting a “can-do” image at the G8 and has drawn comfort from leaders, including Nicolas Sarkozy, who have agreed to tour the earthquake-hit city of L’Aquila with him.

James Walston, a professor of international relations at the American University in Rome, believes that Berlusconi will survive in office.

“Italians don’t really care about his private life — what matters to them is whether he gets the economy going again,” Walston said.

“But the body language at the G8 photocall will be pretty interesting: the other leaders will take one look at him and step back, as if he’s got a big wart on his face. I really don’t expect Obama to let Berlusconi grab him by the shoulder and pose next to him with big grins on their faces. And if he invites leaders to his Sardinian villa, as he loves to do, they’ll say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’.”

Deal Maker

Giampaolo Tarantini, the businessman at the centre of the scandal, used his friendship with Silvio Berlusconi to obtain access to the prime minister’s brother and a junior minister for a client of his lobbying firm, prosecutors suspect.

After setting up CG Consulting, an events and public relations company, last November, he obtained a £128,000-a-year contract from Enrico Intini, chairman of a company involved in environmental protection.

According to Intini, Tarantini secured two meetings for him with Berlusconi’s brother Paolo, owner of the Milan newspaper Il Giornale. Intini wanted help in testing some equipment in Lombardy and reportedly hoped that Paolo could influence local officials.

Tarantini also engineered a meeting for him with Guido Bertolaso, junior secretary for civil protection.

* * *

From The Sunday Times

July 5, 2009

'Lesbian' clinch more embarrassment for Berlusconi

John Follain

The photographs show Silvio Berlusconi grinning broadly as two young women kiss in front of him at his Sardinian estate. But the same photographs threaten to embarrass the Italian prime minister on the eve of the G8 summit of leading industrialised nations that he will host this week.

After two months of allegations about his private life, including a prostitute’s claim that she spent a night at Berlusconi’s residence in Rome, he is keen to put the sleaze behind him and make a new start as a “can do” statesman.

Several European publications are bidding for photographs by Antonello Zappadu, who took 5,000 pictures of Berlusconi’s guests at Villa Certosa in Sardinia in 2007 and 2008. An informed source said the aim was to publish them just before the summit begins on Wednesday “for maximum impact”.

The images show Berlusconi, who was leader of the opposition at the time, with five young women in a gazebo. Two of them are sitting on his lap. He grins approvingly as Angela Sozio, 36, a red-headed former Big Brother contestant, sits on the knees of another young woman and kisses her on the lips.

A man tries to fondle a blonde woman’s breast but she pushes him away. The group then walk through the Villa Certosa estate and Sozio stages a fake wedding ceremony.

She gives a bouquet of flowers to a young woman with whom Berlusconi has been holding hands. Sozio and the other two women intone a wedding march.

Prosecutors in Bari, southern Italy, have questioned Patrizia D’Addario, the call girl who says she was with Berlusconi on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama’s election night. They have also questioned Sozio as part of an investigation into the alleged recruitment of female guests for parties at the prime minister’s homes.

In April 2007 Oggi magazine published part of the picture sequence in a cover story entitled Berlusconi’s Harem. It included shots of Berlusconi, slipping his hand inside the shirt of one of the women. At the time a privacy watchdog banned Oggi from publishing the rest of the photographs.

Last month a Sardinian judge ordered all 5,000 photographs to be seized on the grounds that they violated Berlusconi’s privacy, but they had already been sold to Ecoprensa, a Colombian picture agency. The Spanish newspaper El Pais has published photographs of a topless young woman by a pool and Mirek Topolanek, a former Czech prime minister, who is naked.

Also up for sale are photographs showing two topless women in thongs kissing under a shower in June 2008. The photographs were taken at another home belonging to Berlusconi.

La Repubblica newspaper yesterday identified a woman boarding Berlusconi’s plane at Sardinia’s Olbia airport in August 2008 as the former Bulgarian actress Darina Pavlova, widow of tycoon Iliya Pavlov, who was shot dead by a sniper in 2003. Bulgarian papers reported in 2007 that Berlusconi had “fallen in love” with Pavlova, 44, one of eastern Europe’s richest women.

Berlusconi said nothing last week about the scandal, which began when his wife, Veronica Lario, demanded a divorce. She alleged that he “frequents underage girls” after he attended the 18th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, a model.

Since then his popularity has fallen from 73% to 62%, according to private polls. He has told his staff that he is worried about photographs appearing before the summit in L’Aquila in central Italy, which was devastated by an earthquake in April.

Berlusconi, who was jeered with shouts of “paedophile” and “whoremonger” when he visited the scene of a train crash in Viareggio in Tuscany last week, will aim to minimise the risk of further public hostility when he escorts leaders to towns hit by the earthquake.

A residents’ association named 3.32, after the time of the tremor, intends to mount protests during the summit. Three months on, 25,000 homeless people are still living in camps and the temperature in the tents can reach 44C.

Another 35,000 people have been moved to campsites and hotels on the Adriatic. Local critics contrast this with the speed with which a road to the airport was widened for the G8 leaders. It took three weeks.

Berlusconi also risks a snub from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the Italian-born wife of the French president. After Berlusconi joked that Obama was “always tanned”, she remarked: “Sometimes I am very happy that I have become French.”

Bruni is expected to stay in Rome during the summit and will travel to visit areas hit by the earthquake.

The first ladies of France and the United States are expected to make only brief appearances at the summit, including one at a dinner hosted by the Italian president and another at a gala concert. Their programme includes audiences with Pope Benedict XVI, tours of devastated villages and sightseeing.

American officials said Michelle Obama would stay at a hotel in the capital with her daughters Sasha and Malia; they plan to visit the Colosseum and the Forum. On Friday she will meet the Pope with her husband.

An aide quoted Berlusconi as saying: “If all goes well (at the G8), we’ll make changes in the party and in the government.” Worried by his declining popularity among female voters, the prime minister is considering a reshuffle to bring more women into his government.

Berlusconi has already decided to stay away from his Sardinian villa this summer as it is judged too vulnerable to the paparazzi. Instead he will holiday at his villa in Paraggi near the Riviera resort of Portofino.

From The Sunday Times

August 23, 2009

Berlusconi urged to attend clinic for sex addiction

Silvio Berlusconi and his wife Veronica

John Follain in Rome

MEMBERS of Silvio Berlusconi’s entourage are urging the prime minister to seek treatment in a clinic for sex addiction.

The 72-year-old billionaire’s private life has been the focus of a long-running scandal since he attended the 18th birthday party of Noemi Letizia in April.

His wife, Veronica Lario, 53, has demanded a divorce and Patrizia D’Addario, a prostitute, has said she spent a night at Berlusconi’s Rome residence last November — which he has denied.

The Veronica Trend, an updated biography of Lario, a former actress, to be published on Wednesday, tells her side of the story. It is based on interviews with the prime minister’s wife of 19 years.

The book’s author, Maria Latella, writes that a few members of Berlusconi’s inner circle are calling for the couple to separate formally, but then for Lario to “return to her husband’s side to help him find himself again ... also with a stay in one of those clinics specialising in curing sex dependence”.

“This scenario hasn’t been completely ruled out, and much will depend on how much the press — above all overseas — will continue to be fascinated by Berlusconi’s private life,” she writes.

Latella does not specify whether those backing this idea include Lario or any of the Berlusconi’s three children: Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi. A source said yesterday the clinic suggestion had been floated for the first time shortly before Berlusconi presided over the G8 summit at L’Aquila in July. It would involve a stay of one to two weeks.

But the book says the most realistic outcome, which the prime minister is understood to favour, is an uncontested divorce. Lario may then move from Milan to Switzerland, where she is building a house.

Over lunch in late April, Lario confided to Latella: “I think I have no choice but to separate.”

“Why don’t you talk, you and your husband?” asked Latella, who has known Lario for nearly two decades.

“I can’t. He would tell me yet another lie and this time I couldn’t stand it,” Lario replied. “I can’t condemn myself to being his wet nurse, and now I can’t stop him making himself look ridiculous in the eyes of the world.”

The previous Sunday afternoon, after a family lunch at her palatial Villa Macherio near Milan, Berlusconi told Lario: “I’ve got to go to Naples. I’ve got an important meeting on rubbish collection early tomorrow morning.”

“That was yet another lie,” said Lario. On the evening of his departure from the villa, Berlusconi attended Letizia’s birthday party.

“So it’s best to divorce. I don’t know where I get that conviction, that strength, from. In any case, he’s the one who’s reduced me to this. I could have gone on for years, but this way it’s impossible,” Lario said.

At the time, she made a virulent attack on Berlusconi, accusing him of consorting with underage girls. He has stated that he has never had an improper relationship with minors.

Lario, whom Berlusconi first courted after seeing her perform topless in The Magnificent Cuckold in a Milan theatre in 1980, is usually shy of the media spotlight. Since Berlusconi came to power in 2001, they have lived largely separate lives, with Lario ensconced in Villa Macherio.

In 2007 she demanded a public apology from her husband after he told Mara Carfagna, minister for equal opportunities and a former topless model, that if he was not married he would wed her on the spot. Berlusconi made the apology.

After Lario’s lawyer announced in May she was seeking a divorce, pro-Berlusconi papers published articles denigrating her. According to the book, this so incensed their eldest daughter, Barbara, 25, that she almost broke off relations with her father in a heated phone call.

That evening Berlusconi failed to turn up as expected for a gala dinner at an art gallery in Milan co-owned by Barbara. They have since been reconciled and Barbara stayed with her brother Luigi at Berlusconi’s villa on Sardinia’s Emerald Coast.

But Lario has stayed away from the estate. The couple are understood not to have seen or spoken to each other since the family lunch in late April.

Lario has lost none of her bitterness. “What I’m most sorry about is that a man like Silvio could have let himself down. He has done so much, he has conquered so much and today people talk about things that will make everyone forget what he really was,” Lario told her biographer last month.

* * *

From The Sunday Times

August 16, 2009

Daughters' spat spoils Berlusconi family holiday

John Follain in Rome

IT PROBABLY seemed a good idea at the time. What better way for Silvio Berlusconi to rebuild his reputation and forget the sex scandal that has dogged him for weeks than by inviting his family for a relaxing break at the same Sardinian villa where topless young women were photographed in the company of a naked man?

However, what should have been a relaxing holiday reconnecting the prime minister with his children and entertaining friends has been marred by fresh family feuds.

Two of his daughters have squabbled over control of the 72-year-old Berlusconi’s publishing empire, with one taking the occasional dig at their father’s behaviour.

Berlusconi started his summer break last week with a family reunion at his luxury Villa Certosa on Sardinia’s Emerald Coast to celebrate the 43rd birthday of Marina, his daughter by his first marriage.

Guests included Jose Maria Aznar, the former Spanish prime minister, bankers and neighbours. Marina had threatened to stay away because of the earlier arrival of her stepsister Barbara, 24, with her two sons Alessandro and the newborn Edoardo.

Barbara had just staked a blatant claim to Mondadori, Italy’s largest publishing house, which is part of Berlusconi’s business empire and is run by Marina.

The frequently outspoken Barbara told the Italian edition of Vanity Fair: “I’m fascinated by publishing. My father has always thought that, when I become capable of it, I would take care of Mondadori.”

She further infuriated her father by saying: “I don’t think a politician can allow himself to make a difference between his private and public life.”

Not quite what Berlusconi had hoped for during a wholesome family holiday. “What bitterness. Nobody had warned me. A real bolt from the blue,” he complained to his entourage.

Barbara’s words echoed the attacks of her mother, the former actress Veronica Lario, who is seeking a divorce after criticising Berlusconi’s flirtations with showgirls and his presence at the 18th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, a lingerie model from Naples.

Berlusconi eventually managed to salvage what the Italian press dubbed “the birthday of peace” by persuading Marina to attend.

She had threatened to storm off to another of his homes near the exclusive Portofino on the Ligurian coast or on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

Lario is reportedly determined to ensure Berlusconi’s five children by his two marriages should each receive a 20% share of his fortune, which is worth an estimated £7 billion. The inheritance is split 50-50 between Marina and her brother Pier Silvio, who heads the Mediaset television group, on one side, and Lario’s three children on the other.

An apparently reformed Berlusconi failed to invite any showgirls to the birthday dinner – although guests included Mara Carfagna, the model turned equal opportunities minister at the heart of a row between Lario and Berlusconi after he had publicly flirted with her.

Berlusconi held the buffet beside a giant cage where he keeps butterflies – one of the features of an estate which also includes an amphitheatre, a cactus park and a garden of hibiscus flowers. Midnight fireworks ended the celebrations.

It was on the estate that paparazzi photographers had caught topless beauties sunning and taking a shower. Last week Berlusconi sued photographers who snapped Marina’s arrival on her yacht Besame for breach of privacy.

Because photographers were again lying in wait on Thursday, he abandoned the idea of a boat trip and emerged for lunch at the nearby home of his brother Paolo, who owns Il Giornale, the fiercely pro-government newspaper.

At his estate, Berlusconi has begun a strict diet and get-fit programme with Giorgio Puricelli, a physiotherapist with his AC Milan football team.

In the book Papi: A Political Scandal, published last month, a former actress described a party held at the end of 2007 featuring 50 mostly young women at the villa, saying guests “performed” for Berlusconi and “threw themselves into the pool almost naked”.

* * *

The Sunday Times
October 11, 2009

Silvio Berlusconi squares up for legal dogfight

Premier lambasts enemies behind 'left-wing plot'

(Chris Helgren/Reuters)

Silvio Berlusconi claims to have nerves of steel but has also told allies he does not want the nightmare of court hearings hanging over him

John Follain

No sooner had Italy’s constitutional court stripped him of immunity from prosecution than Silvio Berlusconi summoned his lieutenants to decide how best to prevent the humiliating prospect of a prime minister going on trial.

Berlusconi, 73, had been plunged into one of the worst crises of his 15-year political career after a long summer of scandals over his private life. He wasted no time in pressing Angelino Alfano, his justice minister, for legal reforms that could yet save him from what he privately called the "nightmare" of facing judges.

The possibilities the two men discussed included cutting the time for which a case can drag on through the courts under the statute of limitations; more powers for defence lawyers; and making it easier to dismiss a judge if his impartiality is in doubt.

With the sleeves of his navy blue sweater rolled up to his elbows, the perma-tanned prime minister presided over a two-hour meeting of senior figures from his centre-right People of Freedom party at his Rome residence on Thursday.

"The prime minister is the only one among the state’s leaders who is elected by the people and thus he must be respected like everyone else," a visibly furious Berlusconi said. "The court has given a green light to every prosecutor in Italy and has drawn a target on my back."

The billionaire prime minister was eager to reassure his lieutenants. "I have steady nerves of steel and I have no problem going to court. Italians will see what stuff I’m made of," he said.

Yet he struck a different tone with Alfano and Niccolo Ghedini, his lawyer, who is also an MP. "I don’t want to govern with the nightmare of court hearings. Get on with it," he told them curtly.

With a large parliamentary majority, Berlusconi could push reforms through parliament fast enough for them to become law early next year. If so, they may curtail a bribery trial expected to begin in Milan that would otherwise last until the spring of 2011.

Berlusconi is accused of bribing David Mills, the British lawyer and his former tax adviser, to give false evidence at two trials in which Berlusconi was accused of corruption. Mills, the estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, was sentenced in February to 4½ years in prison. He maintains his innocence and begins an appeal this week.

Berlusconi’s defence team is expected to use delaying tactics and the case is likely to run out of time eventually and be dropped. But the prime minister is also facing trial in Milan accused of tax fraud and false accounting in the purchase of television rights by his Mediaset broadcaster. Under the current law, this would not run out of time until 2012.

"The Milan trials are going to be massive bullfights with Berlusconi’s lawyers doing all they can to make everything go as slowly as possible," a senior investigator said. "You know, it’s not easy to get people sentenced in Italy. Judges get scared and trials die."

Berlusconi described himself as "absolutely the most persecuted by the judiciary in all of the history of the entire world". He had been forced to endure 106 trials and investigations, he said, and to spend £185m "on consultants and judges ... sorry, consultants and lawyers" — a slip that prompted laughter at his news conference.

Speculation about his private life continued. According to an audio tape allegedly made of their encounter by Patrizia D’Addario, a Bari prostitute, the prime minister — to whom she had been introduced as "Alessia" the previous night — asked for her real name the following morning. D’Addario said he knew she was a prostitute, which he denies.

The usually ebullient Berlusconi’s political misfortunes appear to be getting him down. He has denounced what he sees as a left-wing plot in which the schemers include not only the constitutional court judges who ruled he was not above the law but also President Giorgio Napolitano, whom he branded "a leftist head of state".

Among his pet hates is his party ally Gianfranco Fini, the Speaker of the lower house of parliament. Fini is seen as the most likely leader of any coup against Berlusconi, possibly by forcing a vote of confidence. But he has signalled he does not want early elections.

Berlusconi still has the large parliamentary majority that voters gave him for a five-year term in April 2008. If the meetings called after the constitutional court’s decision are anything to go by, he will spend much of his time battling prosecutors and judges. But he intends to hang on to power until the end of his mandate in three years’ time.

Allegations

Berlusconi could face two new trials in Milan:

• For allegedly bribing David Mills, a British lawyer, with £350,000 to give false evidence in two corruption cases;

and

      • For alleged tax fraud and false accounting in the purchase of TV rights by his Mediaset broadcaster