London: Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi is suing a gossip magazine for publishing compromising pictures of him embracing five young women at his villa in Sardinia.
The billionaire politician is now demanding 85,000-pound compensation from Oggi magazine for the collection of pictures at his luxurious home Villa Certosa, which he says unfairly described him as having ‘a harem’ of women around him, the Daily mail reported.
The pictures, which showed the then Prime Minister caressing multiple young women, were printed in the weekly magazine in April 2007, before the other sex scandals involving Berlusconi broke.
The editor at-the-time Pino Belleri could face up to 17 months in prison on charges of a breach of privacy. But defence lawyers told a Milan court on Friday that the editor had acted ‘in the public interest’ by printing the pictures.
She added that Berlusconi’s daughter Marina, president of his Mondadori publishing arm, had also been acting ‘in the public interest’ when Chi printed the intimate photographs of Kate and William on their private holiday at a chateau in Provence.
The verdict is expected on March 1.
ANI
