Coming on top of previous scandals brutality by the intelligence services, and recently the sacking of inconvenient constitutional-court judges the storm over Mr Ivcher and the telephone-tapping that his journalists had uncovered was not about to go away.

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Even Saverio Borrelli, the prosecutor who led the so-called Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) anti-corruption drive that swept away Italy's old political order 15 years ago, recognises that Italian investigators resort much too freely and lazily to telephone-tapping and eavesdropping.

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Vatican magistrates may have authorized the tapping of two or three telephone lines during the cardinals' inquiry into the leaks, Lombardi acknowledged Thursday.

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Vatican magistrates may have authorized the tapping of two or three telephone lines during the cardinals' inquiry into the leaks, Lombardi acknowledged Thursday, responding to a report in the Italian weekly magazine Panorama that claimed a large-scale surveillance operation had been run.

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