Berlusconi: I'll prove I'm innocent

Italy’s beleaguered Premier Silvio Berlusconi today promised to go on TV and appear in court to prove that corruption and tax fraud charges in two trials against him are false.

The trials in Milan are set to resume after the country’s top court overturned a law granting Mr Berlusconi immunity from prosecution while in office.

The ruling yesterday dealt the Italian leader a significant blow, handing prosecutors another chance to seek his conviction.

And it added to the problems of the premier, already engulfed in a headline-grabbing sex scandal over dalliances with young women.

Last weekend tens of thousands took to the streets of Rome against his alleged attempts to curb freedom of the press. A few days later a court in Milan ordered his holding company Fininvest to pay a devastating billion dollars to a rival for a case dating from the 1990s.

“These two trials are laughable, they are a farce which I will illustrate to Italians also by going on TV,” Mr Berlusconi said of the trials that are set to resume. “I will defend myself in the courtrooms and ridicule my accusers, showing all Italians ... the stuff I am made of.”

Mr Berlusconi has already ruled out stepping down, and his conservative allies, who have comfortable majority in parliament, have rallied to his support.

“We’ll continue to govern without this law,” the ever-combative premier said on state radio. He added that he felt “absolutely necessary and indispensable to the democracy, freedom and well-being of this country.”