Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers on Tuesday lodged an official objection against a Milan judge presiding over an ongoing trial in which he is a defendant.
Judge Nicoletta Gandus is presiding over a case in which Berlusconi is accused of paying British corporate lawyer David Mills a $600,000 bribe to hush up incriminating evidence in earlier trials.
Both Berlusconi and Mills deny wrongdoing.
According to the objection lodged by Berlusconi's legal team, Gandus has repeatedly expressed thoughts that reveal ''serious enmity'' towards Berlusconi.
The judge is said to have taken a public stance on several internet sites against laws passed by the previous Berlusconi government between 2001 and 2006.
The premier's legal team also said that Gandus, who previously held shares in Berlusconi's private TV network company Mediaset, was among those with a vested interest in another ongoing trial in which Berlusconi and Mills are accused of fraud over Mediaset film rights.
Berlusconi's attempt to have Gandus removed comes a day after Berlusconi levelled accusations at the chief prosecutor Manlio Minale.
In a letter to Senate Speaker Mario Schifani, Berlusconi described the trial as ''one of many fanciful cases that prosecutors from the extreme left have brought against me for political reasons''.
Adding that he was ''injustly and incredibly involved'', the premier said the trial had been an ''astonishing attempt by the Milan prosecutor to use justice for media and political ends''.
Minale on Tuesday said he ''forcefully rejected'' Berlusconi's suggestions and added that the investigation had been carried out ''with absolute respect for the right to defence and with the sole aim of establishing the truth''.
Berlusconi's comments came under fire from the National Magistrate's Association, which described the accusations as ''extremely serious''.
''The person governing the country cannot denigrate and undermine the authority of judges and the judicial system when his personal position is in question,'' it said.
''This behaviour risks threatening the roots of institutional credibility and compromising the delicate balance between the legal functions and powers of the democratic state,'' it added.
Opposition Senate Whip Anna Finocchiaro said she found Berlusconi's comments on both Gandus and Minale ''unsettling, disrespectful and dangerous''.
''Berlusconi has never before declared his desire to intimidate Italian judges and prosecutors in such an explicit manner,'' she said.
Senators from the opposition Italy of Values (IDV) party on Tuesday held up signs in the Senate that read ''we are all Nicoletta Gandus'' and ''impunity for the premier, zero tolerance for everyone else''.
On Monday opposition politicians accused Berlusconi of trying to wriggle out of the trial via a proposed amendment to the government's emergency security decree designed to fast-track serious crimes to trial.
If passed, the amendment would suspend for a year trials of crimes committed before June 30 2002 for which defendants would be sentenced to less than ten years in prison - which would include Berlusconi's corruption case.
''Step by step, Berlusconi has thought about how to free himself from the judges in Milan,'' said IDV leader Antonio di Pietro, a former prosecutor in Milan's 'Clean Hands' probes into political corruption in the early 1990s.
''First he proposed freezing trials of little social concern, pretending the aim was to give precedence to more important trials, then he attacked the lawyers, and now he has objected to the judge.
''He's moving ahead with a studied criminal strategy,'' Di Pietro added.
