By IANS/AKI,
Rome : Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi appeared in public Wednesday for the first time since undergoing facial surgery earlier this week.
The 74-year-old premier attended a defence meeting in Rome wearing a large white bandage on his cheek after his operation Monday to repair damage from an attack in 2009.
After the defence meeting at the Quirinale palace, Berlusconi was driven back to his Palazzo Grazioli residence where he waved to journalists from his car.
The premier was hospitalised with a broken nose, two broken teeth, cuts and bruising after a mentally unstable man hurled a replica of Milan’s gothic cathedral into his face as he addressed a political rally in the northern city.
Berlusconi was reported to have had difficulty chewing food ever since the attack. During the four-hour operation, surgeons carried out a bone transplant on his jaw and also inserted a new tooth.
Berlusconi’s planned meeting with Israel’s foreign minister was cancelled as Berlusconi rested in his villa at Arcore near Milan – the scene of his alleged erotic ‘bunga bunga parties’.