Italian police on Monday arrested at a Rome airport a journalist who last year fled to Latin America after he was implicated in a corruption and prostitution case involving former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Valter Lavitola was taken into custody shortly after arriving at
Leonardo Da Vinci airport on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Ahead of his return to Italy, Lavitola said he had "had enough"
and was willing to come home and face the charges brought against
him.
Italian prosecutors in September issued an arrest warrant for
Lavitola, accusing him of being the payment link between the then
prime minister and two people - Bari business man Gianpaolo Tarantini
and Tarantini's wife, Angela Devenuto.
At the time, Lavitola was abroad. In several interviews with
Italian media, he denied any wrongdoing, but refused to return to
Italy.
Tarantini and his wife were accused of blackmailing Berlusconi to
the tune of more than a half million euros ($680,000) with
information they had about reported sexual escapades, allegedly with
prostitutes Tarantini had lined up for the premier.
Prosecutors subsequently dropped the blackmail charges against the
couple and switched the focus of their investigation to whether
Berlusconi had known all along that the women recruited by Tarantini
were prostitutes, alleging that, through Lavitola, the then premier
had offered cash and other incentives to the businessman to have him
say Berlusconi didn't know the women were prostitutes.
