Ex-boyfriend rules out Berlusconi having sex with model

Published on Sunday 31 May 2009 22:13

ITALIAN prime minister Silvio Berlusconi did not have sex with a teenager at the centre of a scandal that has wrecked his marriage, the young woman's former boyfriend said.

In a letter to Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper, Luigi Flaminio apologised for having talked publicly about Mr Berlusconi's relationship with aspiring model Noemi Letizia.

"I only told the truth," Mr Flaminio said in the handwritten letter published yesterday. "Now they are insinuating that he (Berlusconi] had sexual relations, something I rule out a priori and is impossible knowing Noemi and her values."

He said his earlier remarks to the left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper had been used to attack the 72-year-old conservative leader, whom he called "a man of the people".

The relationship came to light when Mr Berlusconi was photographed at her 18th birthday party in Naples last month, prompting his wife to demand a divorce and raising an outcry from Italy's opposition.

Mr Berlusconi, still riding high in opinion polls and leading his party's campaign for next week's European elections, insisted he was a friend of Ms Letizia's family and denied any "steamy affair". However, La Repubblica quoted Mr Flaminio as saying the prime minister had first phoned Ms Letizia after seeing her in a modelling catalogue and had hosted her at his villa in Sardinia when she was a minor.

Mr Flaminio had told La Repubblica that Mr Berlusconi hosted dozens of young women at his villa in Sardinia during several days for a Hogmanay party.