Silvio Berlusconi will scandal! Late Italian PM leaves £25.6m to ‘mafia-linked’ pal and £85m to girlfriend
Silvio Berlusconi has sparked outrage and anger from the grave after the late billionaire media mogul’s will revealed he has left £25.6 million to an old friend convicted of a mafia link and £85.4 million to his girlfriend.
Silvio Berlusconi has sparked fury by leaving £25.6 million to an old friend convicted of a mafia link and £85.4 million to his girlfriend.
The scandal-plagued late Italian Prime Minister, who died in June aged 86 after a cancer battle, has had the contents of his will revealed, with one of the main beneficiaries being Marcello Dell’Utri, a former senator in Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia party.
Dell’Utri, 81, ran ad advertising agency for billionaire media mogul Berlusconi and was accused of being the key link between the three-time prime minister and the Cosa Nostra mafia of Sicily.
He fled Italy in 2014 but was arrested in Beirut on an Interpol warrant and served four years in prison and another under house arrest after being convicted of the charge of mafia association and forging links from the 1970s to ’90s between Cosa Nostra bosses in his native Sicily and businesses owned by Berlusconi – but always denied the charges.
Dell’Utri said of his shock at his inheritance: “I have done nothing but cry since this morning: not so much because of the material gesture but because it shows the greatness of the man.
“I didn’t expect it because he didn't owe me anything. I gave everything for him and he gave everything for me.
“We knew each other for over 60 years. He always helped me. Even at university he used to give me his notes.”
The £85.4 million left by Berlusconi went to Marta Fascina, a 33-year-old MP who he had been in a relationship with for several years when he died.
They had a symbolic wedding ceremony in March 2022 which was not legally binding
Former mayor of Naples and centre-left politician Luigi de Magistris, 56, raged about the money on Twitter: “I think of the poor people, the young, who kill themselves working but can barely make it until the end of the month.”
Berlusconi had an estimated £5.1 billion net worth when he died.
In his will, he also gave £86 million to his younger brother, Paolo, 73, and passed on his business empire to his five children.
Berlusconi’s health was raised as an issue in 2021 when he was on trial on charges of bribing witnesses.
A Milan prosecutor said during the case it should be put on hold due to his illnesses.
He had been in and out of hospital in 2021 after he contracting Covid in September 2020.
Berlusconi was accused of bribing witnesses to stay silent over an underage prostitution case that started in 2013, and he has always denied any wrongdoing.
He was forced to resign as prime minister in 2011 and in 2013 he was found guilty of paying a guest at one of his parties, Karima el Mahroug, an under-age dancer known as Ruby the Heart Stealer, for sex.
He was acquitted on appeal on the basis that he did not know she was 17.
Infamous for his ‘bunga bunga’ sex parties, accusations of orgies and a massive 70 criminal trials, Berlusconi then faced accusations he paid his other guests millions of euros to lie about the parties in court.
He had claimed that he was compensating them because their careers were damaged by the publicity from the case.
