The woman at the centre of a scandal involving Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has added a new twist to a saga that has riveted Italy, saying he knew she was a prostitute when she spent the night with him.
"Certainly he knew that I was an escort," Patrizia D'Addario said on a television programme aired nationally by the state broadcaster RAI late last night. RAI said some 7.3 million people watched the show.
Mr Berlusconi (73), has not denied spending the night with the 42-year-old, but she directly contradicted his previous statements that he did not know that she or any of the other women who attended his parties were expensive prostitutes.
"Even the other girls knew that I was to stay there that night. Everyone knew that I was an escort," she said.
The prime minister's spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said the show's assertions were built around "gossip and peeping through a keyhole". The show ended just before midnight but dominated the front pages of nearly all Italian newspapers this morning.
Culture Minister Sandro Bondi said the show was another "degrading and uncivil" attempt to smear Mr Berlusconi.
Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family, accused the show of "telling lies" and "hosting prostitutes to throw mud at the prime minister".
Members of Mr Berlusconi's party were invited to be guests on the show - which Mr Berlusconi says is controlled by the extreme left - but the prime minister ordered his ministers and parliamentarians to boycott it.
The conservative leader, whose wife triggered the crisis in May by seeking a divorce and accusing him of "frequenting minors", denies ever paying for sex. His lawyer said Mr Berlusconi was only "the end user".
The scandal surrounding Mr Berlusconi's private life revolves around a court case in southern Bari concerning the activities of businessman Gianpaolo Tarantini, who is under investigation for corruption in the local health system.
Mr Tarantini, who is under house arrest after being charged with drug dealing, acknowledges that he helped procure female guests for dinners and parties at Mr Berlusconi's home but says prime minister did not know they were prostitutes.
"I introduced them as my friends and kept quiet that I was sometimes paying them," Mr Tarantini has been quoted as saying in Italian newspapers.
Ms D'Addario taped explicit conversations with Mr Berlusconi on her cellphone and went public when, she says, promises such as business favours and even a European Parliament seat went unfulfilled.
She said the first time she went to a party at the premier's Rome residence, she had declined to stay the night and was paid €1,000 instead of the €2,000 Mr Tarantini had promised. The second time, US election night last November, she stayed.
Ms D'Addario described the atmosphere at the parties as "like a harem".
Another escort, Barbara Montereale, said that "all the girls knew" that if they agreed to spend the night at the prime minister's residence, Mr Tarantini would give them extra money.
Mr Berlusconi is suing newspapers in Italy and elsewhere in Europe for libel in their coverage of the scandals. Italian journalists are demonstrating nationwide tomorrow against what they describe as government attempts to muzzle the media.
The scandals have cost Mr Berlusconi some support among Roman Catholic voters. While he talks of approval ratings of nearly 70 per cent, most polls put them nearer 50 per cent - still relatively high in the context of the worst recession since the second World War.
Reuters