Paper posts 'Berlusconi and escort' tapes online

ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's private life was back in the spotlight when a leading news group posted audio tapes and transcripts of what it said were conversations with a female escort.

An Italian news weekly has obtained tape recordings of what it says was the night Berlusconi spent with a prostitute in which the premier is purportedly heard asking her to wait for him in bed while he showered.

The escort, Patrizia D'Addario, has said she taped her two encounters with Berlusconi at parties he threw for young women at his residence in Rome.