Italian police have arrested a man (26) who tried to reach the hospital room of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is recovering from an attack on Sunday that left him with a fractured nose and broken teeth.
The incident is likely to raise further questions about Mr Berlusconi's security, even though Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has absolved police and the prime minister's bodyguards of any blame for Sunday's attack.
Milan police said the man, who appears to have psychological problems and is from the northern city of Turin, said he wanted to talk to the 73-year-old conservative leader.
He had entered the hospital around 2am (local time) via the underground car park and simply took the elevator to the seventh floor, where Mr Berlusconi is convalescing.
He was immediately detained and searched, but was not carrying any weapons. Police said hockey sticks were found in his car.
Mr Berlusconi was struck in the face after a weekend rally when a man with a history of mental illness threw a miniature replica of Milan's cathedral at him.
The 42-year-old man arrested for that assault, Massimo Tartaglia, hurled the statuette at Mr Berlusconi's face from close range as the prime minister was shaking hands and signing autographs after a rally in Milan's central Duomo square.
A judge upheld Mr Tartaglia's arrest today.
Doctors said Mr Berlusconi would be discharged tomorrow, a day later than expected, as he was still in pain and had problems eating normally. They said he would have to restrict his public activities for two weeks.
Italy has been in shock since the assault, with politicians denouncing a climate of hatred and warning about the risk of a return to the kind of political violence that bloodied the country in the 1970s.
In a sign of rising tensions, a letter bomb was found half-exploded overnight at Milan's Bocconi university, judicial sources said. A little-known anarchist group claimed responsibility for the bomb, which caused only minor damage.
Mr Berlusconi's allies have accused the leftist opposition of conducting a violent campaign against the prime minister, who has been under pressure for a string of sex scandals and faces the reopening of trials for corruption and tax fraud.
The government has vowed to rush out new measures like blacking out hate sites on the Internet and tightening security at public gatherings.
Facebook, where groups have sprung up praising Mr Berlusconi's assailant Mr Tartaglia, said today it would remove any "threatening content" from its pages as soon as requested.
Reuters