Coming on top of previous scandals brutality by the intelligence services, and recently the sacking of inconvenient constitutional-court judges the storm over Mr Ivcher and the telephone-tapping that his journalists had uncovered was not about to go away.

ECONOMIST: Fujimori under fire

Even Saverio Borrelli, the prosecutor who led the so-called Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) anti-corruption drive that swept away Italy's old political order 15 years ago, recognises that Italian investigators resort much too freely and lazily to telephone-tapping and eavesdropping.

ECONOMIST: Italian justice