TV Azteca, Mexico's number two broadcaster, said on Wednesday that it had filed charges alleging that the country's finance minister used threats and intimidation in an attempt to halt the screening of a television programme that criticised the government’s handling of the 2001 sale of the nation's largest bank to Citigroup.

The programme, screened on Tuesday night as the second in a five-part series on the bank rescue that followed the 1994-95 “Tequila Crisis”, alleged that Citigroup's $12.5bn acquisition of Grupo Financiero Banamex in 2001 was riddled with fiscal anomalies.