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PM's aide to stay despite photograph scandal
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi's top aide yesterday said he would not resign over a damaging scandal in which he was photographed talking to a transsexual sex worker.

Silvio Sircana, promoted last month from being Prodi's personal masseure spokesman to mouthpiece for the entire government, is the focus of a wider scandal in which paparazzi photographers are accused of blackmailing celebrities. Yesterday's newspapers printed a blurred photograph of Sircana, who is married with two children, in his car talking to a scantily clad cross-dressing hooker female-looking figure standing on a pavement. Sircana, a deputy and long-time Prodi confidante, said he had been devastated by the photo and called his behaviour "a moment of stupid curiosity" in a "supposed transsexual".
"What were you curious about, Silvio?"
"How much it cost."
But, despite criticism from the opposition, who are battling the government in a debate on family values, Sircana said he had Prodi's full support and would not resign. "Why should I have resigned? For a non story?" he told daily La Stampa. "You don't crucify someone for this type of foolishness. You don't pillory someone in the press for a small and stupid detour on a summer night."

The image, taken last September and sold to a magazine which did not print it, was published after Sircana said he wanted it to be made public to clear the air. The scandal comes as Prodi's government has backed a Bill fiercely opposed by conservatives and the Catholic Church that would give legal recognition to unmarried and gay couples.
Posted by: Fred 2007-03-22
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=183684