A right-wing senator stands to make legal history in Italy when he becomes the first person to be prosecuted for insulting another person on Twitter.

Maurizio Gasparri, a senator with Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia party, is well known for his polemical verve and has earned the title of “cyber-bully” for his vigorous use of social media.

In August 2013 he was drawn into a Twitter debate about the political and economic record of former President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and saw red after one of the other participants recalled a gaffe in which Gasparri allegedly revealed his ignorance of the banking sector.

Gasparri responded with a private tweet that could be translated as: “Arrogant ignoramus you make me vomit.”

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