Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has denounced, at the G8 summit in Deauville, “the left-wing dictatorship of judges” in a conversation with U.S. President, Barack Obama, who reacted with cool and awe, Italian media announced on Friday.
Berlusconi, who is involved in several trials, in Italy, for cases of conflict of interest and an alleged relationship with a minor, has made of the “red magistrates’ fierceness” a political fixation, multiplying his attacks against them.
But his insistence to speak Thursday about this with the U.S. president, at a summit devoted to major international problems, including armed conflict in Libya, brought Friday irony pointing to Berlusconi in almost all media in the Peninsula.
Asserting, however, that the G8 is “not the right place to talk about it”, Berlusconi dedicated on Friday, half of a press conference at the end of the summit, to the attempt to justify this “private conversation”.
“Remember that it is my institutional duty, when meeting heads of state and government, to explain the situation in Italy on events which could undermine the credibility of the country and those they represent”, he told the journalists.
“It is my duty to explain this situation that, especially those from abroad, fail to understand”, he insisted, assuring that he had talks with all foreign leaders he met.
Prime Minister considered “outrageous” that Italian journalists are not “scandalized” by the “legal bitterness” of which he is victim. “Shame on you”, said the Prime Minister of Italy to them.
Berlusconi, who has not had so far a private meeting with Barack Obama, pressured in this regard on Thursday, the first day of the summit in France, getting close, along with his photographer, to the U.S. President, sat at the table conference.
“We presented the reform of the judiciary which is fundamental for us, because right now, we almost have a dictatorship of leftist judges”, said Berlusconi, whose claims were captured by television cameras nearby.
In front of the President, emotionless, Berlusconi insists. “I’ve been through 31 trials and was always aquitted”, he said.
The situation lasted for two minutes. The journalists noticed that the president did not say anything, slightly embarrassed.
“I do not know if Berlusconi will ask Obama for a NATO intervention”, said, ironically, the secretary of the Democratic Party (left, in opposition), Pier Luigi Bersani.
Many newspapers are hostile: “This is a premier using the international scene to harm his country, discrediting it to other leaders of democratic countries” commented La Repubblica.