Woman says Berlusconi knew she was prostitute

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-02 20:05

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi smiles during his meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at Chigi palace in Rome September 30, 2009. [Agencies]

ROME: The woman at the centre of a scandal involving Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi added a new twist to the saga that has riveted Italians, saying he knew she was a prostitute when she spent the night with him.

"Certainly he knew that I was an escort," Patrizia D'Addario said on a nationally televised programme on state broadcaster RAI late on Thursday night. RAI said some 7.3 million people watched the show.

Berlusconi, 73, has not denied spending the night with the 42-year-old D'Addario but she directly contracted his previous statements that he did not know that she or any of the other women who attended his parties were high-class prostitutes.

"Even the other girls knew that I was to stay there that night. Everyone knew that I was an escort," she said.

Berlusconi spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said the show's assertions were built around "gossip and peeping through a keyhole". The show ended just before midnight and dominated the front pages of nearly all Italian newspapers on Friday morning.

Culture Minister Sandro Bondi said the show was another "degrading and uncivil" attempt to smear Berlusconi. Another Berlusconi supporter said the prime minister was "indignant" that the show went on the air on state television at all.

Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family, accused the show of "telling lies" and "hosting prostitutes to throw mud on the prime minister".

Members of Berlusconi's party were invited to be guests on the show -- which Berlusconi says is controlled by the extreme left -- but the prime minister ordered his ministers and parliamentarians to boycott it.

The conservative leader, whose wife triggered the crisis in May by seeking divorce and accusing him of "frequenting minors", denies ever paying for sex. His lawyer said Berlusconi was only "the end user".

Southern Businessman

The scandal surrounding Berlusconi's private life revolves around a court case in southern Bari concerning the activities of businessman Gianpaolo Tarantini, who is under investigation for corruption in the local health system.

Tarantini, who is under house arrest after being charged with drug dealing, acknowledges that he helped procure female guests for dinners and parties at Berlusconi's home but says Berlusconi did not know they were prostitutes.

"I introduced them as my friends and kept quiet that I was sometimes paying them," Tarantini has told Italian newspapers.

D'Addario taped explicit conversations with Berlusconi on her cellphone and went public when, she says, promises like business favours and even a European Parliament seat went unfulfilled.

She said the first time she went to a party at the premier's Rome residence she declined to stay the night and got paid 1,000 euros instead of the 2,000 Tarantini had promised. The second time -- US election night on November 4 last year -- she stayed.

D'Addario described the atmosphere at the parties as "like a harem".

Another prostitute, Barbara Montereale, said that "all the girls knew" that if they agreed to spend the night at the prime minister's residence Tarantini would give them extra money.

Berlusconi is suing newspapers in Italy and Europe for libel in their coverage of the scandals. Italian journalists will hold a nationwide demonstration on Saturday to protest against what they describe as government attempts to muzzle the media.

The scandals have cost Berlusconi some support among Roman Catholic voters. While he talks of approval ratings of nearly 70 percent, most polls put it nearer 50 percent -- still relatively high in the context of the worst recession since World War Two.