Berlusconi fiancee wants Pope Francis to 'hear his story'

ROME, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's fiancee say she will appeal to Pope Francis over his expulsion from the Senate.

Berlusconi was convicted in August of tax fraud, and the Senate voted Wednesday to expel him. In an interview with the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, Francesca Pascale said Berlusconi is "angry" over his ouster, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Pascale said Berlusconi is innocent.

"Now I'd like to whisk him away, far away from those who hate him, to shield him from the blows of unjust humiliation," she said, adding that would not be his "style."

Pascale said she plans to write the pope.

"I'm launching an appeal to Pope Francis, an appeal for him to receive me and hear the story of Berlusconi," she said.

Vatican City, while embedded in Rome, has the status of a separate country, and the pope has no temporal power in Italy.

Pascale attacked Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi's former political heir who launched a new political party last week to avoid opposing Berlusconi's expulsion.

But she was especially angry at Prime Minister Enrico Letto.

"He's the worst kind of Communist, the kind who denies he is one," she said.