Silvio Berlusconi agrees settlement with wife

By ILARIA POLLESCHI
Published on 28/12/2012 13:01

FORMER Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has agreed to pay his estranged wife Veronica Lario £82,000 a day as part of a divorce settlement, Italian media said.

Reports said the £29m-per-year settlement, reached after three years of negotiations, was filed with a court in Milan at Christmas.

Mr Berlusconi plans a return to frontline politics to lead the centre-right campaign ahead of an election in February.

Ms Lario, a former actress who was married to Mr Berlusconi for more than 22 years, asked

for a divorce from the 76-year-old billionaire in 2009, accusing him of having an affair with a 17-year-old girl. She had delivered a public rebuke to her husband over his relations with other women, sending an open letter to the daily La Repubblica newspaper in 2007 in which she said he owed her a public

apology.

She sought a divorce saying she could “no longer stay with a man who frequents minors” after reports emerged that Mr Berlusconi had attended the 18th birthday party of aspiring model Noemi Letizia.

Since then, he has been dogged by repeated allegations of sexual scandals.