Politics don't get much more Italian than this. An investigation by a maverick magistrate born in Somerset is stirring up a hornet's nest of allegations involving blackmail, transvestites, prostitutes, footballers, businessmen and, just for good measure, government spin doctors. And, at the base of it all, are the antics of the paparazzi in the land of their birth.
The latest twist is that the Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, is denying plotting to cover up the scandal while the chief spin doctor faces calls to resign over an alleged tryst with a transsexual prostitute.
Mr Mastella yesterday strongly denied the "slanderous" allegations made on Friday by Italy's top talent agent, Lele Mora, who claimed that he asked the "very kind" minister for help in containing the inquiry into extortion of politicians, footballers and showgirls that was launched by Judge Henry John Woodcock, a half-British investigator.
Opposition newspapers have had a field day. Milan's Il Giornale yesterday left a blank space on its front page which it said it would have used, had it not been prevented by a special gagging order, to publish a set of pictures of Silvio Sircana, the Italian Prime Minister's cadaverous 55-year-old chief spokesman, together with a transsexual hooker.
Their meeting was allegedly recorded by an extortion gang headed by a sleazy photographer known as the "king of the paparazzi", Fabrizio Corona, apparently in the hope of obtaining hush money.
Mr Corona was arrested on Monday on charges of blackmailing former PM Silvio Berlusconi, the Agnelli family, who own Fiat, and football star Francesco Totti. Mr Corona claimed he sold celebrities the chance to buy snaps at the same rates he could have sold to the newspapers. But police tapping his telephone heard him tell his wife: "Yes it is true, I ruin lives. I am a piece of shit and I don't even feel guilty."
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