Mussolini's granddaughter dismisses `sex video' claim

Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of fascist dictator Benito, said Friday she did not know "whether to be angry or to laugh" at reports that a newspaper has been offered a video allegedly showing her having sex with the leader of a tiny extreme-right wing party.

Mussolini, a parliamentarian for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party, was reacting to a front-page article published in Milan-daily Il Giornale - which is owned by the premier's brother.

"Even we at Il Giornale were offered the video in a telephone call. We replied: no. We are not even interested in seeing it," the article said.

Initial claims of the video's existence first surfaced last week on the leftist anti-globalisation website Indymedia, Il Giornale said.

Allegedly, Il Giornale added, citing Indymedia, the video shows, "explicit sex" between the 46-year-old Mussolini, a married mother of three, with Forza Nuova leader Roberto Fiore.

The two are former political allies in a defunct far-right grouping Alternativa Sociale with which Mussolini was elected to the European Parliament in 2004.

The video was allegedly shot by a security camera in Forza Italia's party headquarters in Rome.

Fiore himself described the report as a "ridiculous hoax", spread by a "completely unreliable source".

Mussolini suggested she was being targeted, referring to reports last week that someone had attempted to sell part of her grandfather's brain on the online auction site Ebay.

In addition, this week saw the opening in Italian cinemas of a Romanian film which Mussolinin believes defames her.

Il Giornale, which backs the sex-scandal plagued Berlusconi's conservative government, decried what it said was "nauseating", turn politics had taken through "blackmail, mysteries, shame and violence aimed at the soul of people".

It cited the recent scandal involving a prominent centre-left opposition politician Piero Marrazzo who earlier this month resigned as governor of Lazio - the region encompassing Rome - after four policeman were arrested for allegedly trying to blackmail him over a video showing him in the company of a transsexual prostitute.

In June, a self-described prostitute, Patrizia D'Addario, claimed she spent a night with Berlusconi at his residence in Rome after she and other women were paid to attend parties hosted by the premier.

Recordings purportedly of Berlusconi's conversation with D'Addario have been posted on the internet.

The premier, who earlier in the year took legal action to stop the publication of photographs showing topless young women on the grounds of his villa in Sardinia, has denied ever paying for sex and has threatened to sue D'Addario.

Last updated on Nov 27^th, 2009 at 18:52 pm IST--DPA