Three employees of a cult TV show which caused a storm last year by exposing drug use among Italian MPs now face trial, judicial sources said on Tuesday.
Rome prosecutors are set to request that the crew from the satire show Le Iene (The Hyenas) be tried for invasion of privacy, the sources said.
The crew secretly tested 50 lawmakers for drug use in October 2006.
The results showed that one in three of the MPs had taken illegal drugs in the preceding 36 hours, with 12 allegedly testing positive for cannabis and four for cocaine.
The case triggered parliamentary uproar and led to intervention by Italy's privacy authority, which prevented the report from being aired.
Le Iene, which goes out on former premier Silvio Berlusconi's private TV network Mediaset, pulled off the drug test stunt by pretending to interview the MPs about the 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.
The incident led to heated debates on TV, with some demanding that MPs be made to take an obligatory drug test.
The privacy regulator objected to the methods involved, saying the tests were carried out illicitly without the knowledge of the people concerned.
The authority's decision to block the report created a censorship row, particularly since Le Iene was allowed to broadcast a flanking skit in which the same drug tests were secretly carried out on people at a nightclub.
Of the 40 people tested, half of them showed up positive for cocaine.
Dozens of MPs protested against the regulator's decision, saying that lawmakers were being unfairly protected by the authority.
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.
The Rome investigation sparked further polemics, with some MPs contesting the move as "repressive".
Meanwhile, liberal groups and MPs in favour of abolishing tough drug laws passed in February 2006 accused parliament of hypocrisy.
Environment Minister and Green party chief Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said that "absurd laws have been passed which punish youngsters for smoking a joint, and then we find out that politicians are taking too much cocaine".
Italy's drug laws, passed by the previous, centre-right government, enshrine a "zero tolerance" approach to all types of drugs, making possession of hard and soft ones a potentially criminal offence with jail terms ranging from six to 20 years for dealers.
Critics have protested strongly over the thresholds for drug possession, which they say are too low and above which a user can be prosecuted for dealing.
The centre-left government of Premier Romano Prodi plans to revise the legislation.
COCAINE ALARM SOUNDED.
Interior Minister Giulio Amato recently sounded the alarm over a rise in cocaine use in Italy, saying demand was now "gigantic".
According to the most recent figures, from 2005, 7% of Italians between the ages of 14 and 54 admit to trying cocaine at least once in their lives, with an 80% rise in cocaine use in the period 1995-2005.
Cocaine consumption is believed to be higher in only two other European countries - Britain and Spain.
Other statistics estimate that 10-12% of Italian teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 have tried cocaine and 7-10% crack, which is a processed form of cocaine hydrochloride.
The results of an air pollution survey issued last week showed traces of cocaine floating around in the air of Rome.
The survey by the National Research Council (CNR) found the highest concentrations of cocaine and other drugs like cannabis and nicotine in the air around Rome University.
