Italy’s speaker to sue Berlusconi newspaper over “red light” claims

October 2nd, 2009 LONDON - The prostitute at the center of Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal gave out intimate details of their purported encounter on live TV. Patrizia D'Addario appeared on a prime time RAI talk show hosted by Michele Santoro, a one-time center-left European Parliamentarian.

September 10th, 2009 LONDON - After Silvio Berlusconi's recent comments that "all Italians want to be like me," a columnist has said that the premiere casts an impression of being an "angry, defeated and depressed man who is at odds with everyone". The columnist claimed Berlusconi has based his 15-year political career on image-making through his television and advertising empire, but the image is wearing thin - thanks to the controversies, reports The Times.

July 24th, 2009 LONDON - The editor of a leading Italian newspaper dubbed subversive by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has defended its series of exposures about alleged sex scandals involving the Italian leader, saying it had become a political issue. You can imagine in your country, what would happened if [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown met some escorts in his house and one of those escorts used a tape recorder and took pictures, Ezio Mauro, Editor of La Repubblica, told The Times in an interview published Friday.

July 23rd, 2009 LONDON - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has laughed off juicy allegations surrounding his private life by simply saying "I am no saint". The business tycoon's comments follow the release of audiotapes on the net, which purportedly reveal conversations between him and a prostitute, reports The Telegraph.

July 23rd, 2009 LONDON - Silvio Berlusconi has been issued with a writ following his attacks on the newspaper group, which published a series of audiotapes made by a prostitute of her alleged meetings with the Italian Prime Minister at his residence. The business tycoon's personal life came under the limelight when the publishers of La Repubblica announced that it was suing him for attacking it as "subversive", reports The Times.

July 6th, 2009 ROME - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in an interview published Monday, has denied the existence of photographs whose publication could further embarrass him as he prepares to host a Group of Eight summit later this week. Berlusconi was reacting to a report by the London-based Sunday Times that a series of photographs taken at the premier's luxury Sardinian villa would surface ahead of the G8 summit, which begins Tuesday in L'Aquila, Italy.

June 28th, 2009 LONDON - Silvio Berlusconi has blasted an escort girl's claims that he slept with her. Italy's billionaire prime minister was accused by Patrizia D'Addario, 42, a former actress from Bari in southern Italy, who claimed that the 72-year-old had sex with her on the night of November 4, when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, at Palazzo Grazioli, Berlusconi's Rome residence, reports The Times.

June 25th, 2009 LONDON - Silvio Berlusconi has blasted a call girl who claims she was paid to attend one of his parties, accusing her of being part of a coordinated "mission" to compromise his integrity. Responding to the claims that he slept with escort Patrizia D'Addario at a party at his Rome mansion in November, he said: "Someone gave a very precise and extremely well paid mission to this Miss D'Addario." The Italian Prime Minister gave the response in an interview with magazine, Chi, reports The Telegraph.

June 25th, 2009 LONDON - While blasting Silvio Berlusconi's claims that he has never paid for sex, escort girl Patrizia D'Addario has said that the Italian premiere promised her help to push through a stalled construction project in return for her services. D'Addario, a mother of one, yesterday hit back at the Italian Prime Minister's claims that she was part of an organized "mission" to malign him, reports The Times.

June 21st, 2009 LONDON - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is facing pressure from the Catholic Church and the ruling coalition following a flood of allegations about his involvement with a teenage underwear model and escort girls, a British newspaper reported Sunday. ...The patience of Mr Berlusconi's supporters is being stretched to breaking point - and they have been joined by the Catholic Church in warning that the lurid allegations are gravely, perhaps fatally, damaging to his standing, the Sunday Telegraph said.

June 21st, 2009 LONDON - Back in November last year, when Barack Obama was making history as US president, Italian premiere Silvio Berlusconi was enjoying a candlelit dinner party with three beautiful women at Palazzo Grazioli, his luxurious residence in Rome, reveals one of the guests. Patrizia D'Addario, 42, a former actress and escort girl said that the 72-year-old then asked her to stay for the night.

June 20th, 2009 LONDON - Silvio Berlusconi is so badly stuck in the labyrinth of controversies that he has become "blackmailable", says a leading Italian daily newspaper. "The spectre of blackmail hangs over Berlusconi," said La Stampa.

June 15th, 2009 ROME - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said that subversives are planning a palace coup of sorts to impose an un-elected leader on the country. Addressing a business lobby group, Berlusconi said: "There is a campaign of scandals against me.

June 13th, 2009 LONDON - Antonello Zappadu, the photographer whose controversial photos of topless young women bathing in Silvio Berlusconi's Sardinian villa appeared in a Spanish newspaper, has hinted that there are more pictures to come. In his first interview with a British newspaper, Zappadu has revealed that the unseen pictures show guests at Berlusconi's private paradise of Villa Certosa, and some snaps include a "mock marriage" between the Italian Prime Minister and a woman in her twenties.

June 1st, 2009 LONDON - Ex-boyfriend of Noemi Letizia, the 18-year-old aspiring model at the heart of Silvio Berlusconi's divorce row, says that Italian Prime Minister did not have sex with the teenager. In a letter to Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper, Luigi Flaminio apologised for talking about Berlusconi's relationship with Letizia publicly, and ruled out any sexual relationship.