Berlusconi comes out fighting

A defiant Silvio Berlusconi has come out fighting in an interview with an Italian gossip magazine, denying allegations that he paid women for sex during parties at his official residencies and insisting that he is the victim of a set-up. The Italian Prime Minister tried to draw a line under the series of revelations that he had entertained young models and starlets by telling Chi magazine - which he owns - that he had "nothing to apologise for".
 
"I have never paid a woman," Berlusconi insisted in the interview, published today. "I never understood what the satisfaction is when you are missing the pleasure of conquest."

However, he failed to address the point that it was businessmen seeking favours who are alleged to have paid the women – not Berlusconi himself.

The Italian premier also attacked Patrizia D'Addario, the model who said last week she had been paid €1,000 to attend a party at the Palazzo Grazioli, Berlusconi's Rome residence, along with a "harem" of other women, and then slept with him on a later date.
 
Berlusconi told Chi that D'Addario was "very well paid" to make the allegations. "Someone sent her with a very precise aim," he said, adding that he would have kept her a "thousand miles away" had he suspected a honey trap.
 
D'Addario denies she was paid to entrap Berlusconi. "If he has the slightest proof to support his allegation he should hand it to the authorities," the 42-year-old former TV showgirl told the news agency Ansa.
 
Berlusconi also said that his estrangement from his long-suffering wife Veronica Lario, who is seeking a divorce, was "a very painful wound". He added: "I don’t know if time can heal it. What is certain is that ours has been a great love story."
 
Despite being engulfed in scandal, Berlusconi managed to score a convincing victory for his centre-right party in provincial and municipal elections. However Italy's top pollster, Renato Mannheimer, argues that a steep rise in abstentions contributed to the People of Liberty party's success. ·