Now the trouble really begins for Berlusconi

As Italy's Prime Minister, he avoided court by flying to foreign summits while pushing for laws to make himself immune from prosecution.

But after his resignation amid the eurozone crisis, Silvio Berlusconi's biggest legal battles now start in earnest. The media mogul turned politician faces a December full of hearings in trials for fraud, bribery and paying an underage girl for sex.

"Berlusconi no longer enjoys the same right to avoid trials that he did as Prime Minister and we are expecting a busy month," said a source at the Milan courthouse where he faces hearings in three trials between now and Christmas, some on the same day.

In what promises to be a surreal summing-up of his years in office, Berlusconi's trial for paying a Moroccan dancer, Karima "Ruby" El Mahroug, for sex when she was under 18 resumed last week, followed by three more hearings in December that promise a parade of showgirls to give evidence about the bunga-bunga parties at his Milan mansion.

Now pregnant by her partner, a Genoa nightclub owner, El Mahroug is expected in court as Berlusconi's lawyers try to convince an all-female panel of three judges that he had showered her with cash to keep her from straying into prostitution.

Prosecutors are likely to ask how Berlusconi could claim El Mahroug was on the breadline when, after she was arrested for theft, he also told Milan police he believed she was a relative of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. Berlusconi is also charged with pushing police to free her.

Berlusconi may yet be thrown a lifeline by Italy's constitutional court, which will rule in February on whether the trial should shift to a special tribunal for ministers. In the meantime, he can no longer use the ruling that allows a Prime Minister with commitments to ask for his trial to be postponed. "Now, if he doesn't show up ... the trial simply proceeds without him," said the court source.

Berlusconi kept busy last week rallying his troops in Parliament while moving his possessions out of Palazzo Chigi, the Prime Minister's office and residence.

This week, a trial started in which he was not a defendant but could weigh equally on his reputation.

Nicole Minetti, the TV dancer he appointed a regional councillor, is accused of procuring prostitutes for Berlusconi, alongside TV newsreader Emilio Fede and the showbusiness agent Lele Mora, who is already in jail for fraudulent bankruptcy.

The pimping trial clashes with a hearing in his trial for fraud at his Mediaset TV company. A second fraud indictment has been dropped.

That leaves Berlusconi's trial for paying British lawyer David Mills US$600,000 in 1997 for lying in court on his behalf.

Finally, a judge will decide next month if Berlusconi should face trial for leaking to one of his publications the transcript of a police wiretap.

- Observer