A popular veteran journalist who disappeared from Italian TV screens after being criticised by former premier Silvio Berlusconi is set to return to national television.
Enzo Biagi, who was dropped by state broadcaster RAI in 2002, is scheduled to make his comeback in April 2007.
The head of RAI's third channel, Paolo Ruffini, said Biagi would helm a programme on his station mixing current affairs with reminiscences and reflections by the 86-year-old journalist.
Biagi's former programme Il Fatto, a 10-minute, prime-time news spotlight on RAI's flagship channel with consistently high ratings, was axed in 2002 after then-premier Berlusconi accused its host of political bias.
The billionaire media magnate, who owns Italy's private TV network Mediaset, accused Biagi and two other RAI TV figures of having slashed his May 2001 election lead by making "criminal" use of state TV.
Biagi was criticised in particular for interviewing left-wing comic Roberto Benigni on the eve of elections.
Biagi, fellow journalist Michele Santoro and satirist Daniele Luttazzi were dropped by RAI not long after Berlusconi's complaint.
The three cases led to allegations of censorship at the broadcaster under Berlusconi's government, accusations which were heatedly denied by RAI management.
Santoro returned to the broadcaster earlier this year after an absence of four years but Luttazzi has not been seen since.
Biagi confirmed in a television interview on Sunday that he would soon be back at RAI but added, on a cautious note: "There are those who find me a problem and have no desire to see me return".
"I believe there are certain issues which should be dealt with in more depth - for example, the Mafia, the Camorra (the Neapolitan version of the Mafia) and the 'Ndrangheta (Calabria's version)," Biagi said.
Communications Minister Paolo Gentiloni hailed Biagi's return, saying that "this heals an open wound and sets right a serious error".
"This is good news for viewers more than anyone else," he said.
RAI journalists' union Usigrai also expressed satisfaction, saying that "this is not only fair reparation for a recent past of vetoes and censorship at RAI but also marks the end of a terrible period which must not be allowed to repeat itself".
It called for the reinstatement of other journalists whom it said had been sidelined because of their political leanings.
"Journalistic ability and satire are two things which are good for everybody and under all governments," Usigrai said.
No comments were available from Berlusconi's coalition, which lost power to the centre left in the April general election.
Berlusconi and his centre-right government repeatedly denied accusations of exerting undue influence at RAI during their time in government.
They charged Biagi and Santoro of being prejudiced against the right and failing to give a balanced political picture on their shows.
Other episodes of alleged censorship at RAI during the centre-right's government included the axing of a left-wing satire show called Raiot after it took swipes at Berlusconi and Mediaset in its debut episode; and criticism of a RAI current affairs show after it interviewed Bill Emmott, the editor of British weekly The Economist and an outspoken critic of Berlusconi.
