A foul-mouthed Silvio Berlusconi is caught saying he wants to leave Italy in a phone recording from an investigation into a blackmail plot against the prime minister that led to two arrests on Thursday, Italian media reported.
Berlusconi vented his frustration at multiple investigations against him in expletive-laden comments to a man alleged to have been an intermediary in blackmail payments to a businessman who allegedly paid women to attend Berlusconi's parties.
“I'm so transparent, so clean in everything I do. There's nothing I could be reproached for. I don't do anything that could be seen as a crime. People can say I f**k but that's all they can say,” Berlusconi was quoted as saying.
“I couldn't give a f**k. In a few months I'm going to go away and mind my own f**king business. I'm leaving this sh*t country that makes me feel like puking,” he said, according to a report by Italian news agency ANSA.
The report, which quoted official documents from the blackmail investigation, said the comments were part of a phone conversation on July 13 between Berlusconi and online newspaper editor Valter Lavitola, who is now wanted by police.
The alleged blackmailer, Giampaolo Tarantini, and his wife, Angela Devenuto, were arrested earlier on Thursday at their luxury apartment in central Rome near the famous Via Veneto - the most expensive street in the Italian capital.
Tarantini received a 500 000 euros ($700 000) initial pay-off from Berlusconi followed by smaller monthly payments of 20 000 euros, according to Panorama magazine.
Berlusconi himself was quoted by Panorama, a news weekly owned by Berlusconi's family, denying that he was being blackmailed by Tarantini.
“I helped a person and a family with children that founds itself and still finds itself in very grave economic difficulties,” Berlusconi told Panorama.
“I did nothing illegal. I only helped out a desperate man and asked for nothing in return. That's how I am and I'll never change,” he said.
The scandal over Tarantini blew up in 2009 when a prostitute, Patrizia D'Addario, came forward to say she had sex with the prime minister in his palace in Rome.
Tarantini later said he had paid around 30 young women to attend lavish soirees at Berlusconi's homes in Rome and Sardinia in which the female guests entertained the prime minister and provided sexual favours for him “if the need arose.”
Berlusconi is currently a defendant in two trials for fraud and tax evasion and one for allegedly having sex for money with a then 17-year-old girl last year and then pressuring police to release her from custody in order to hide his crime.
The 74-year-old prime minister, who made billions in the television and construction industries before entering politics in the 1990s, has denied and laughed off all allegations but has admitted in the past he is “no saint”.
The latest swirling allegations come at a bad time for the prime minister, who has suffered several political defeats in recent months and is under pressure on the economic front because of Italy's low growth and high public debt.
Tarantini, a businessman in the medical services industry who has already been investigated for corruption and drug trafficking, was arrested “for extorting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi”, Italian police said in a statement.
Official documents quoted by Italian media alleged that Tarantini extorted money for Berlusconi in exchange for telling investigators that Berlusconi did not know that the women attending his parties were being paid to do so.
The money was also apparently intended to persuade Tarantini to opt for a fast-track trial in a previous investigation in order to avoid a lengthier process that could have brought to light even more embarrassing details.
“I presented them as my friends and I did not mention the fact that sometimes I paid them,” Tarantini said in one of his earlier interviews.
Having sex with prostitutes is not a crime in Italy but Berlusconi likes to put forward a macho image and insists he has never had to pay for sex.
In a book about her night with Berlusconi in 2009, D'Addario claimed: “Berlusconi knew I was an escort. And I wasn't the only one.” - AFP