Berlusconi and D’Addario ‘on tape’

The Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica has rekindled the scandal of the call-girl who claims she spent the night of November 4, 2008 in Silvio Berlusconi's bedroom at the Palazzo Grazioli in Rome, by posting recordings of their alleged encounter on its website and publishing a transcript.

Patrizia D'Addario claims she made the recording after attending a dinner on the night of Barack Obama's election victory. The transcript has Berlusconi apparently telling D'Addario to wait for him in the 'Putin bed' - a reference to the four-poster bed said to be a gift from the Russian prime minister.

Berlusconi - assuming it is him - can be heard to say: "I will take a shower as well... and then wait for me on the big bed if you finish first?"

D'Addario replies: "Which bed... that Putin one?"

Berlusconi: "The Putin one."

D'Addario: "Oh how sweet, the one with the curtains."

The next day, the prime minister apparently calls D'Addario to ask how she is.

D'Addario: "I'm fine... my voice has gone..."

Berlusconi: "Eh? We didn't even scream."

The prime minister -  most commentators are convinced by the clipped Milan accent that it is indeed him - closes the call by saying he is on his way to Moscow and adds: "Ciao tesoro (Goodbye treasure)."

Another taped conversation, said to have been recorded on November 5, has D'Addario telephoning Giampaolo Tarantini, the businessman from Bari who is alleged to have invited her to a previous party at the Palazzo Grazioli in October, as a result of which she was invited back on November 4.

D'Addario, referring to her night with Berlusconi, says: "We didn't close our eyes all night."

Tarantini replies: "I can imagine, how did it go?"

D'Addario: "Good, but there was no pay cheque."

Tarantini: "Really?"

D'Addario: "I swear. How come? You told me that there would be a pay cheque. He gave me a small gift, I don't know what, a little turtle."

Tarantini is under investigation by magistrates in Bari on suspicion of corruption and abetting prostitution. The leaked tapes are supposed to have been given to the magistrates.

Berlusconi, who has denied ever knowingly using an escort or prostitute, did not comment on the tapes yesterday, but his lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, described them as being of no value, improbable and the product of invention. "The truthfulness and the legality of the taped assertions have already been contested," he said. ·