The authors of a television prank which exposed drug use among Italian MPs risk being charged with invasion of privacy, judicial sources said on Thursday.
Rome prosecutors are investigating three journalists and the director of the cult show Le Iene (The Hyenas), for secretly testing 50 lawmarkers for drugs and revealing that one in three had apparently taken them in the previous 36 hours.
A total of 12 tested positive for cannabis and four for cocaine, according to Le Iene.
Amid parliamentary uproar over the prank, Italy's privacy authority intervened and ordered the segment to be deleted from the show, which began its new season last week. Le Iene, which goes out on former premier Silvio Berlusconi's private TV network Mediaset, pulled off the stunt by pretending to interview the parliamentarians about next year's budget.
As one of its reporters engaged willing MPs in conversation, a fake make-up artist secretly carried out drug-wipe tests on their foreheads.
The sweat collected on the wipe was then tested for drugs in a method which Le Iene said was 100% foolproof.
On Wednesday, police raided Mediaset's Rome studios to collect the swipes and footage of the episode.
The incident caused an uproar in parliament and heated debate in television news shows, with some demanding that MPs be made to take an obligatory drug test. Thursday announcement that Le Iene were being investigated revived the controversy and sparked further polemics.
Judicial sources stressed that Rome prosecutors were bound by law to begin the legal procedures because their office had received formal complaints. They did not reveal who had filed the complaints. Green party House Whip Angelo Bonnelli urged prosecutors to shelve the proceedings, saying that MPs's privacy had not been invaded since that segment of the show had not been broadcast.
Alessandra Mussolini, hard-right MP and granddaughter of Fascist dictator Benito, called the latest development "grotesque".
"Why haven't prosecutors begun an investigation on the unidentified MPs who illegally got hold of the drugs," she said.
Dozens of MPs protested against the regulator's decision, saying that lawmakers were being unfairly protected by the privacy authority.
Radical leader Daniele Capezzone, whose party is one of nine making up the centre-left government, also accused the privacy regulator of censorship. "Privacy is important but freedom of information is even more so," said Capezzone, whose party is lobbying for drug liberalisation.
Liberal groups and MPs in favour of abolishing Italy's tough new drug laws also accused parliament of hypocrisy.
Other MPs defended the regulator, decrying an escalation in the invasion of privacy. They warned that unless the trend was checked, companies would soon begin running secret health checks on their employees.
