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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (C) reacts after being assaulted in Milan. Berlusconi was rushed to hospital after a man with a history of mental problems attacked him, knocking out two of his teeth, following a political rally in Milan Sunday. [Xinhua/AFP Photo] |
Italian politicians on Sunday reacted angrily to an attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, according to the local media reports.
"I express the strongest condemnation of the serious and reckless act of aggression against the prime minister to whom I show my personal solidarity," Italian President Giorgio Napolitano was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA.
In the meantime Napolitano launched "a clearest, renewed appeal that every political conflict and institutional framework has returned to within the limits of responsible self-control and of civil confrontation, in order to prevent and suppress any impulse and spiral of violence."
"It's a bad day for Italy and all political forces have a duty to ensure that the country will not relive the years of violence," the speaker of Chamber of Deputies Gianfranco Fini said in a telephone connection with the Italian television TG1 commenting the injury suffered by the prime minister.
Fini expressed his "conviction" for what happened as "an act of violence that can not be justified," he said.
The Italian Minister of Defense Ignazio La Russa who was accompanying Berlusconi at the scene said the attack is the result of "hate." He said the demonstrations organized before by the oppositions aiming at the prime minister has incited the hate.
"It is a shame that must be firmly condemned," said Pier Luigi Bersani, the secretary of the Italian's biggest opposition Democratic Party.
Berlusconi was hit and injured in the face while he was greeting supporters in the main square in Milan on Sunday. He was then sent to a hospital. A 42-year-old man named Massimo Tartagliawas arrested for the attack. |
