Monday, January 14, 2008

Berlusconi Target of Islamist Death Threat

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: ROME: Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi received an Islamist death threat Friday in a letter containing two bullets that was sent to a newspaper owned by his family's media empire.

The blank cartridges were "a forewarning" to Berlusconi and his younger brother Paolo, the publisher of Il Giornale, for the Milanese newspaper's "anti-Islamic" stance, according to the paper's Web site, which published the letter.

The letter warned that "at the first favorable moment" the Berlusconi brothers would come to the same end as Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader, who was assassinated Dec. 27.

"We will do like they did in Pakistan, with Bhutto: a shot to the head with real bullets and then an Italian-style suicide bomber to make sure that they depart this world," the letter read.

"Bodyguards and security details will be unable to stop us, because we are unpredictable," said the letter. Berlusconi is target of Islamist death threat >>> By Elisabetta Povoledo

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)