Berlusconi blasts press for breaching divorce implicated teen's privacy

London, May 21 (ANI): Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has blasted the country's press, accusing it of "disgraceful behaviour" for revealing that Noemi Letizia, the 18-year-old accused of being at the heart of his divorce, owns four properties in Naples.

Public land registry showed that the Letizia family flat in the Naples suburb of Portici had been in the name of Letizia since 2003, Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy's main financial paper, said.

According to the paper, two other Naples flats were also in her name, one since 1995 and the other since 2005, as was a small family shop in the suburb of Secondigliano since 2002, reports The Times.

The paper noted that none of the properties was luxurious and that Letizia's parents, Benedetto Letizia and Anna Palumbo, had reserved the right to live in and use all of them.

Visiting L'Aquila, the centre of the earthquake zone in Abruzzo, where the G8 summit is to be held in July, Berlusconi erupted in fury, saying: "The girl has been targeted by the newspapers in an unacceptable way."

Publishing her property holdings was "disgraceful and shameful", he added.

"What do private matters have to do with this? By what right do you occupy yourselves with them? I've been to I don't know how many weddings, celebrations and anniversaries, I have nothing to hide. By what right do you persecute a respectable family?" he said. (ANI)