Berlusconi voodoo dolls hit the shelves 

Source: ReutersItaly's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during the taping of the television program Porta a Porta

As if Italy's prime minister did not have enough worries already, he now risks a public needling after the launch of voodoo Silvio Berlusconi dolls covered with choice quotes from the gaffe-prone Italian prime minister.

An Italian businessman announced the sale of the dolls on the same day that a Mafia witness linked the 73-year-old Berlusconi to the Mafia and a corruption case against him resumed.

Berlusconi has denied any wrongdoing.

"I think of it as a lucky charm," says Marco Darrigo, a businessman who came up with the idea of the blue foam doll to accompany copies of Voodoo for the President, a satirical book on the prime minister's future downfall.

"Our business was struggling and the banks wouldn't give us a loan, so we came up with the idea of producing something a bit different, it is a joke."

Darrigo says he has sent one of the voodoo dolls - complete with pins - to the prime minister's office as a gift for Berlusconi and hopes all Italian politicians will soon have one.

The puppet, pins and book can be bought online.

The website - which describes voodooism as "the black magic which the damned communists used to beat Silvio Berlusconi's empire in 2021" - includes a disclaimer that assures Berlusconi's lawyers that the doll and story are satirical.

Berlusconi has repeatedly accused opposition political parties and magistrates of being communists out to destroy him.

Libero, a newspaper that strongly supports him, ran a story and picture of the doll on its front page on Friday and assured its readers that the doll, and other attacks against Berlusconi, would just boomerang.

"These are all hits below the belt that will wind up strengthening the prime minister," Libero says.

Last year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy went to court seeking a ban on a voodoo doll representing him and an accompanying manual, but a court rejected his case citing, in part, "the right to humour".

An appeals court later ruled the figurines and manual were an offence to Sarkozy's dignity but let them remain on sale.