MILAN: Italian police have arrested a 26-year-old man who tried to reach the hospital room of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is recovering from an attack on Sunday that left him with a fractured nose and broken teeth.
Milan police said the man, who appears to have psychological problems and is from the northern city of Turin, said he wanted to talk to the 73-year-old conservative leader.
Berlusconi was struck in the face after a weekend rally when a man with a history of mental illness threw a miniature replica of Milan’s cathedral at him.
Police said the man arrested on Wednesday had entered the hospital around 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) via the underground car park and simply took the elevator to the seventh floor, where Berlusconi is convalescing.
He was immediately detained and searched, but was not carrying any weapons. Police said hockey sticks were found in his car.
The incident is likely to fuel further debate about Berlusconi’s security, even though Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has absolved police and the prime minister’s bodyguards of any blame for Sunday’s attack. The 42-year-old man arrested for that assault, Massimo Tartaglia, hurled the statuette at Berlusconi’s face from close range as the prime minister was shaking hands and signing autographs after a rally in Milan’s central Duomo square.
A judge upheld Tartaglia’s arrest on Wednesday.
Doctors said Berlusconi would be discharged on Thursday, a day later than expected, as he was still in pain and had problems eating normally. They said he would have to restrict his public activities for two weeks. The attack on Berlusconi, a popular but divisive figure, has sparked soul-searching among Italian politicians over whether a vitriolic political climate provoked the assault.
Berlusconi’s allies have accused the leftist opposition of conducting a violent campaign against the prime minister, who has been under pressure for a string of sex scandals and faces the reopening of trials for corruption and tax fraud.
The government has vowed to rush out new measures like blacking out hate sites on the Internet and tightening security at public gatherings after the assault. Facebook, where groups have sprung up praising Berlusconi’s assailant Tartaglia, said on Wednesday it would remove any “threatening content” from its pages as soon as requested.
