January 19, 2000
Web posted at: 10:58 p.m. EST (0358 GMT)

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ROME, Italy -- Bettino Craxi, Italy's longest-serving premier of the postwar years, died Wednesday in Tunisia, where he had fled in disgrace to avoid a prison sentence for corruption. His bitter family refused offers of a state funeral in Italy.

Craxi's lawyer, Giannino Giuso, said the 65-year-old died of a heart attack at his seaside villa in Hammamet, where he settled after fleeing Italy in 1994. Craxi had suffered for years from heart problems and other complications of diabetes.

Craxi's daughter, Stefania, said he would be buried in Tunisia, expressing anger over the way her father had been treated by the political establishment in Italy. She told the Italian media that the family would not accept a state funeral despite reported offers by the Italian government.

"They killed my father," she told Italian television in a telephone interview from Tunisia.

"He was killed by judges who handed down infamous sentences that were full of lies, by friends who turned their backs on him and did not intervene to stop injustices. We will not accept posthumous (praise) from these people," she said.

In November, a Milan court ruled that Craxi could return to Italy for surgery on condition he serve his corruption sentence under house arrest. Craxi refused. He had a kidney removed in a Tunisian hospital.

"I'd only return as a free man. Any different way, I won't return, not alive nor dead," Craxi said in an interview with RAI, Italian state television.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.