Berlusconi Sues for $1.6M

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has launched a legal attack on Italian and international media for their reporting on his alleged involvement in various sex scandals. Berlusconi is seeking damages of €1 million from the Espresso Group, which owns the newspaper La Repubblica, for spearheading the campaign in reporting his relationships with various actresses and prostitutes. Writs have also been served on magazines and newspapers in at least two other countries. Berlusconi has accused La Repubblica of being "rhetorical and blatantly defamatory" in asking 10 questions of him about various scandals. La Repubblica said that "for the first time in the history of Italian journalism, the questions [posed by] a newspaper will end up in a civil court.".\