Silvio Berlusconi made to pay for mystery links to Noemi Letizia, 18

The Naples seafront offers relief from the dusty, hot and chaotic streets. In the evening young girls arrive on the backs of their boyfriends’ scooters and perch self-consciously on the railings, with the harbour, Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples as a backdrop, canoodling, chatting — and above all posing. Any one of them could be Noemi Letizia, the 18-year-old aspiring model from the suburb of Portici, who wants to make a career as a television showgirl and actress, and perhaps in politics. This week Chi magazine, which is owned by Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, published photographs of Ms Letizia kissing her boyfriend of one month, Domenico Cozzolino, on the seafront, with her mother, Anna, kissing her father, Benedetto, in the background. But Ms Letizia is not like all the others: she is at the centre of a political storm that shows no sign of receding. The storm is also threatening to rock Mr Berlusconi’s normally unshakeable political bandwagon. The unlikely friendship the Prime Minister has cultivated down the years with Noemi and her mother and father, including his appearence at her 18th birthday party, has led to his wife planning to divorce him and a dip in his normally stratospheric poll ratings.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6297084.ece