LEAD: Berlusconi to stand trial in intercepted phonecalls case

Feb 7, 2012, 13:37 GMT

Rome - A Milan judge ordered Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday to stand trial in a case involving intercepted telephone conversations, setting March 15 as the date for the first hearing.

Magistrate Maria Grazia Domanico charged the former Italian prime minister for 'revealing official secrets.'

The case stems from the 2005 publication, in a newspaper owned by Berlusconi's brother Paolo, of potentially embarrassing excerpts of a telephone conversation involving Piero Fassino, a leading member of Italy's centre-left Democratic Party - the main opposition to Berlusconi's then-ruling conservative coalition.

Berlusconi appeared in court during Tuesday's hearing, and denied the charges against him.

He said he had never listened to the recordings of the telephone conversation. 'Otherwise I would have remembered it,' Berlusconi told the court, according to ANSA news agency.

In September, investigative magistrate Stefania Donadeo told prosecutors to request that Berlusconi be indicted on charges of 'revealing official secrets,' in relation to the transcripts that were published by Il Giornale.

In the conversation, Fassino had encouraged Giovanni Consorte - then-president of Unipol, a insurance company close to the Democratic Party - in his takeover bid for the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro bank.

Consorte was later convicted on insider trading charges related to the takeover bid.

Fassino, who is now mayor of Turin, was not implicated in the case. On Tuesday he indicated that he would seek damages in the trial against Berlusconi, media reported.

Prosecutors had dropped their investigation into Berlusconi's role in the case, but Donadeo rejected the prosecutors' decision and said there was sufficient evidence for Berlusconi to be indicted - in a move described by Italian media at the time as 'unusual.'

Tuesday's indictment brings to four the number of trials against Berlusconi, who resigned as premier in November.

Two of these are linked to the business dealings of his Mediaset company while in another, the 75-year-old Berlusconi is accused of having paid for sex with an underage Moroccan dancer.

Italy's constitutional court is scheduled to meet on February 14 to decide on a complaint by Berlusconi's lawyers that magistrates presiding over the so-called sex trial are not competent to try the case.

The prosecutors argue that, since the alleged crime involving then-17-year-old Karima El Mahroug occurred when he was still premier, the trial should instead be handled by a special court for top public officials.

Berlusconi denies any wrongdoing in all the cases and has accused whom he describes as leftist magistrates of trying to destroy him.

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