Please forgive me, pleads Berlusconi in apology to wife

FORMER Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi issued a public apology to his wife yesterday after she learned through the press of his verbal dalliance with a pretty young lawmaker.

“Please forgive me, and take this public testimony ... as an act of love, one among many,” he said after Veronica Lario wrote a letter to La Repubblica newspaper demanding his contrition, which she said he had failed to show in private.

“Dear Veronica, here is my apology,” Italy’s richest man wrote in a letter carried by the ANSA news agency. “My days are crazy, as you know. Work, politics, problems, trips ... a life under constant pressure.”