Opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi appears set on legal action against an Italian weekly which published photos of him strolling around his Sardinian residence with several young women.
Berlusconi is said to be "very irritated" over what he told aides was an invasion of privacy by photographers who he believes entered the grounds of his Sardinian villa illegally.
The photos, which appeared on Tuesday in Oggi, show the 70-year-old former premier strolling through the park around his Villa Certosa residence with five young women. In some of the pictures he is posing for a snap with them.
"This time I'm determined to take legal action and to go all the way," Berlusconi reportedly told collaborators, adding that behind Oggi's publication of the photos there was a "clear political strategy" aimed at damaging his image.
"It would have been one thing if there were public personalities or politicians there, but the photos show guests and carefully exclude the other people present," he was quoted as saying.
Berlusconi aides said that the photos had deliberately left out all the other people present - such as gardeners, security staff and other male guests - and instead focused "maliciously" on the female guests.
"It was a normal party on the day before Easter in which groups of young men and women, Berlusconi supporters and sympathisers go to see him in his park at Villa Certosa," said spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti.
Stressing the "innocent" nature of the images, Bonaiuti referred darkly to compromising pictures of centre-left government spokesman Silvio Sircana which the same weekly bought recently but then did not publish.
"I'll let you judge the director of Oggi," he said, implying that political sympathies had been the criterion used in deciding which photos to publish.
Berlusconi is not alone in his protest. At least three members of the governing centre left expressed concern over the publication of the photos and two called on House Speaker Fausto Bertinotti to take action to ensure MPs privacy was better respected.
After the polemics grew steadily on Monday, the office of the national privacy ombudsman announced it has opened enquiry.
Meanwhile, Oggi director Pino Belleri denied that the photographers who took the pictures had trespassed on Berlusconi's private property, saying they used powerful telephoto lenses.
"The photographers didn't even climb over a dry stone wall: they stayed outside the property. That's what they said and I have no reason not to believe them".
The flutter over the photos of Berlusconi entertaining young female guests come three months after his wife, actress Veronia Lario, publicly scolded him for his roving eye.
In a letter published by a national daily, Lario demanded - and subsequently received - a public apology from her husband for his flirtatious ways, saying he had belittled and demeaned her.
Lario referred to comments the former premier reportedly made to several young starlets during a gala dinner given after a top TV award ceremony.
Asked to comment on the latest episode involving her husband, Lario said she had nothing to add to her earlier letter.
