ITALIAN PRIME minister Silvio Berlusconi has reassured his supporters about his wellbeing.
In a message carried on the website of his People of Freedom party (PDL) yesterday the 73-year-old prime minister said: “Heartfelt thanks to all those many people who have sent me messages of sympathy and solidarity. To all of you, I repeat myself – you can rest easy and feel safe. Love always triumphs over envy and hate.”
Mr Berlusconi was hit in the face by Massimo Tartaglia (42), who has a history of mental illness, as he stopped to sign autographs after a PDL rally beside the cathedral in Milan on Sunday.
A medical bulletin issued by the San Raffaele hospital said Mr Berlusconi would be leaving hospital today, adding that his condition did not “give rise to concern” even if he was still suffering pain from his injuries and from an old neck problem that had been reactivated by the attack.
Doctors recommended that Mr Berlusconi abstain from public engagements for at least two weeks, a recommendation which according to the prime minister’s spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, will be hard to enforce.
“It will be a huge job to ensure that. We’ll do our best to keep him quiet for his own good but his greatest strength is being out there in the midst of people, looking for human contact. It’s a good job that the Christmas holidays are coming up soon,” said Mr Bonaiuti.
Inevitably, the attack on the prime minister continues to provoke bitter recriminations. Speaking in parliament, senior PDL figure Fabrizio Cicchitto said that since 1994 Mr Berlusconi had been the victim of a “campaign of hate”, worked up by the Repubblica-Espresso publishing group, by daily Il Fatto, by the state TV current affairs programme, Annozero and by “a media terrorist of the name Travaglio”, a reference to outspoken investigative journalist Marco Travaglio.