Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said today he is afraid of being assaulted and even killed as a result of the media’s negative portrayal of him during his five years in office and the hatred of leftist sympathisers.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi telephoned the man who struck at him in a busy Rome piazza on New Year’s Eve, ensuring him of forgiveness and reassuring the his worried mother that he would not press charges, a report said today.