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'I am Italy's best-ever premier', says Silvio Berlusconi
Alison Richards11 Sep 2009
Silvio Berlusconi has refused to resign over his latest sex scandal, saying he is Italy's best premier ever.
The prime minister admitted for the first time that women were brought to his home by a businessman under investigation for drugs and prostitution, but insisted he had not paid for sex.
Speaking at a press conference in Sardinia, Berlusconi said that Giampaolo Tarantini had brought about 30 “beautiful” women to parties at his Rome palazzo and at least six had spent the night there.
But he said the talk of a prostitution ring was “an utter lie, an utter slander.”
He also said he was considering suing the woman at the centre of the scandal.
Patrizia D'Addario, a self-proclaimed prostitute, claims she tape-recorded Berlusconi during a night she says they spent together at the premier's home last year.
In the tapes, which were obtained by the left-leaning newsweekly L'Espresso, a man identified as Berlusconi is heard telling D'Addario to wait for him on the big bed while he showers.
Berlusconi said Thursday he was considering taking legal action.
He said he had been the “victim of an attack by a person who wanted to create a scandal” - an apparent reference to D'Addario.
D'Addario shot back late last night, challenging the premier to a public debate about the night in question as well as a more general debate over “relations between men and women, techniques of conquest, sex and power,” the ANSA news agency reported.
Berlusconi spoke after an Italian-Spanish summit with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Asked whether he might consider resigning, he said: “I sincerely believe I have been the best (premier) that Italy has had in its 150-year history, and I base that on what I've done and what I'm doing,” he declared.
Berlusconi repeated his insistence that he “didn't pay a lira, a euro, for a sexual favor” and never had.
“I say this also because, for those who love to conquer, the joy and the most beautiful satisfaction is in the conquest,” Berlusconi said, as an expressionless Zapatero looked on. “If you have to pay, I ask you, what joy is there?”
Berlusconi has been under fire for months since his wife announced she was divorcing him because of his fondness for younger women.
While polls indicate Berlusconi still has the support of most Italians, the scandal has strained the conservative premier's relations with the Catholic Church and a key political ally.
