Some suggest the daily's anti-war stance upset Mr Berlusconi

Journalists and opposition politicians claim Ferruccio de Bortoli was pushed out of his job at Corriere della Sera because the centre-right paper criticised Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The newspaper itself said on Friday that Mr de Bortoli had stressed he was quitting for "personal reasons".

However, an anonymous member of the paper's newsroom committee told Radio Popolare he had been under "heavy political pressure".

A senior member of the Democrats of the Left party, Luciano Violante, described the episode as "another case of media freedom being undermined through monopolies and sackings".

We fear a non-pluralistic and non-democratic clampdown. So, we have fears over the independence of the media and journalists Paolo Serventi Longhi Head of Italian Press Federation

Prime Minister Berlusconi controls the nation's largest private broadcaster, Mediaset, which operates three national TV channels.

His government can also exercise some influence over state broadcaster RAI, which has three public TV channels.

Critics say this gives him a virtual monopoly on the media and has led to a conflict of interest between his public and business roles.

'Final reckoning'

At the beginning of May a specialist publication on the internet, Prima, said Mr Berlusconi was angry with Corriere della Sera and that a "final reckoning" was close.

It said Mr Berlusconi had a long-term dislike of the editor dating back to a front-page expose of the prime minister years before.

Mr Berlusconi is currently being tried on charges of bribery

Other newspapers - such as left-wing daily La Repubblica - have linked Mr de Bortoli's resignation to his newspaper's opposition to the war in Iraq, which was supported by Mr Berlusconi's government.

Corriere della Sera's journalists published an open letter in Thursday's edition of the newspaper saying they had full confidence in Mr de Bortoli and calling on the publisher not to interfere with the paper's leadership without consulting them.

Mr de Bortoli's departure follows the resignation of another former Corriere della Sera editor, Paolo Mieli, from the board of RAI in March.

Mr Mieli, a left-winger, had been appointed to the RAI chairmanship by the parliament in an attempt at even-handedness.

But pressure from some forces on the right, including anti-Semitic graffiti, led him to quit RAI altogether, citing "technical and political difficulties"

'Continued interventions'

Last week, the head of the Italian Press Federation was quoted as saying the media situation in the country was "unbearable".

Paolo Serventi Longhi blamed the pressure on Mr Berlusconi's "conflict of interests and his continued interventions, not only on the public broadcaster [RAI], but the media in general".

"We fear a non-pluralistic and non-democratic clampdown. So, we have fears over the independence of the media and journalists," he told Radio Populare.

Mr Berlusconi is currently on trial on charges of bribing judges to influence the outcome of a corporate takeover bid in 1985 and is appealing a separate 11-year sentence for corruption.

He has denied all wrongdoing, contending that he is the victim of persecution by left-wing prosecutors.