According to a report by the Reuters news agency, the last time Mr Berlusconi had commented on the settlement was in December, when he had been ordered to pay Veronica Lario – whom he married in 1990 – around €100,000 per day, after she filed for divorce and accused him of having an affair with a 17-year-old girl.

Persecution

However, in his new comments he did not elaborate on whether the new figure included back payments. ‘They ordered me to pay €200,000 a day, and this says a lot about who the Milan judges are,’ Mr Berlusconi told television channel La7. ‘They are three feminist and communist judges.’
Mr Berlusconi also repeated previous claims that Milan judges had been persecuting him since 1994 because they oppose him politically. The 76-year-old billionaire is set to run for a fifth term in government in a parliamentary election scheduled for 24-25 February.