Silvio Berlusconi was mired deeper in the scandal over his private life yesterday after the publication of explicit photographs taken at his Sardinian villa that showed topless women and a naked man, later identified as the former Czech Prime Minister.

The Spanish daily El País published five paparazzi photographs over three pages under the headline: “The photographs Berlusconi did not want Italians to see.”

“I am not frightened. These are innocent photos, there is no scandal, but there has been an aggressive intrusion into my private life,” Mr Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, told a radio station.

His lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, said that he would be taking legal action to prevent further images being circulated. El País insisted that their publication was in the public interest. It said that Mr Berlusconi’s conduct was “not only a subject for concern for Italians but for all Europeans”.

The photographs show Mr Berlusconi accompanied by at least five women in the grounds of the villa; the Italian leader with a young woman in jeans and a pink top; two women, both topless, next to a whirlpool bath and a statue of a nude figure in a landscaped rocky scenery; a naked man with an unidentified woman on a sun-lounger by the side of a pool; and a woman in a red coat and jeans apparently being watched over by a man in a camouflage coat with an automatic gun.

Yesterday Mirek Topolanek, who was the Czech Prime Minister last summer at the time that the photograph was taken, admitted that he was the man seen cavorting at the Villa Certosa, which is at the centre of the growing scandal.

“It is me in the photo,” said Mr Topolanek, who resigned in March after he lost a confidence vote. He said that the photographs had been doctored and accused “European socialists” of orchestrating a smear campaign. “I did not know that the [European] elections were so important for the European socialists that they would do such manipulations,” said Mr Topolanek.

The revelation has broadened what was an Italian scandal, about Mr Berlusconi’s private life, into an international one. Many world leaders have been regular visitors to the villa; the Blairs were guests there in 2004.

The images were taken by Antonello Zappadu, a local photographer who took hundreds of photographs with a long lens of parties at the villa on the Costa Smeralda, starting in May last year. Mr Zappadu had obscured the faces of those photographed, apart from Mr Berlusconi. This week police seized Mr Zappadu’s archive after Mr Berlusconi took legal action to try to stop them being published.

Mr Zappadu told the newspaper that “practically every weekend” Italian air force planes had brought friends, musicians, dancers and television presenters to the villa. An official inquiry has been opened into whether Mr Berlusconi abused his power by using state aircraft to transport his guests.

The revelations could damage Mr Berlusconi ahead of elections this weekend. The photographs were reproduced in the Italian daily La Repubblica and on several Italian newspaper websites. One reader of La Repubblica’s website said “Innocent? The bottom of the lady in the photos does not seem to me to be very innocent — even if it is a beautiful bottom.”

Some readers called on Mr Berlusconi to step down immediately, though others backed him, saying the “invasion of his privacy” would not affect his sky-high popularity.

Speaking on a RAI radio phone-in, Mr Berlusconi said the photographs showed his guests taking showers, adding: “Do you take a shower in a jacket and tie?”

Controversy has been growing over the 72-year-old Italian leader’s unexplained relationship with Noemi Letizia. The model was present at a new year party at the villa when she was 17. The Italian leader unexpectedly attended her 18th birthday party in Naples in April. His relationship with Ms Letizia prompted his wife to announce that she would be seeking a divorce because he “consorted with minors”.

Asked about his failure to explain the contradictions in his accounts of how he met Ms Letizia, Mr Berlusconi said he had the right “not to speak of matters which relate to my private life”. He said he had denied “spicy” relations with Ms Letizia.

He repeated that the scandal was an “invention of the Left”, which had no credible programme.

Mr Berlusconi admitted that he had used state aircraft more often than the previous centre-Left government of Romano Prodi, but claimed this was because “we have worked harder and found ourselves in the middle of an international crisis for which we often have to travel round the world to attend meetings”.

He said he did not fear a drop in support from Roman Catholic voters following strictures from the Vatican over his “lack of sobriety”, saying: “If any government is close to Catholics it is this one.”

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