The head of Italy's centre-right opposition was under mounting political pressure yesterday, as investigators pored over seized documents to try and determine whether Mr Silvio Berlusconi's business empire was founded on laundered Mafia money.
The seizure of the accounting records of 22 holding companies that control Mr Berlusconi's Fininvest broadcasting and publishing group was ordered by Palermo prosecutors on Monday.
The magistrates are investigating allegations that a long-standing business and political ally of Mr Berlusconi, Mr Marcello Dell'Utri, obtained money from Cosa Nostra in the early 1980s in order to buy film rights for Mr Berlusconi's newly established commercial television channels.
Mr Berlusconi responded angrily, with a now familiar refrain, that he was the victim of politically motivated persecution, and his lawyers said the confiscation of the documents violated their client's immunity as a member of parliament.
A number of witnesses have recently claimed that Mr Dell' Utri, a senior employee of Mr Berlusconi and now a member of parliament for his Forza Italia Party, was responsible for laundering Mafia drug money through the Fininvest company. One of them, Mr Filippo Rapisarda, a former business partner of Mr Dell'Utri, reportedly told magistrates that Mafia bosses, Stefano Bontade and Mimmo Teresi, gave Mr Dell'Utri 20 billion lire (£8 million) with which to buy films, at a time when Mr Berlusconi was short of cash. The precise origin of the funds that enabled Mr Berlusconi to achieve success, first in the construction industry and then as a broadcaster, retailer and publisher, has long been a mystery. And control of Fininvest has been screened behind a series of holding companies, ranging from First Italian Holding to 22nd Italian Holding. The reason for this discretion, according to Mr Berlusconi, was that at the time the companies were created, wealthy Italians ran a considerable risk of being kidnapped.
But this aura of mystery has helped to fuel rumour and suspicion.
In 1994 the Catholic daily, L'Avvenire, commented: "The spectacle of these 22 empty boxes, each one containing another like a series of Russian dolls, gives Silvio Berlusconi and the Fininvest group an unpleasant air of scarce transparency and embarrassing craftiness." Now a team of magistrates, aided by three financial consultants, is attempting to establish the origin of the money.
Already convicted on three counts of corruption and with more trials to come, Mr Berlusconi's trademark smile is beginning to show the strain. But for the moment, the man who entered politics without resolving the conflict of interest posed by his business empire seems entirely unbothered by the fact that he is himself a three-times convicted felon when discussing reform of the judicial system.