A top Spanish judge decided on Wednesday to reopen a tax fraud investigation against former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi .
Baltasar Garzon, Spain's best-known judge, said the probe could resume because Berlusconi had lost his immunity from prosecution .
"Berlusconi is no longer premier and the immunity attached to that office was the reason why proceedings were suspended," Garzon said .
The investigation centres on alleged irregularities connected to Berlusconi's holdings in Telecinco, Spain's biggest private TV broadcaster .
Prosecutors suspect that Berlusconi's stake in Telecinco in the early 1990s exceeded the 25% limit allowed by Spanish law on ownership of a single TV station .
They allege he owned more than 50% and possibly up to 80% through offshore firms, at the same time committing extensive tax fraud .
The probe was frozen in 2001 when Berlusconi became Italian premier but his consequent immunity ended when he lost the April general election to Romano Prodi .
Spain's Constitutional Court threw out claims by Berlusconi defence team in July that his immunity still applied .
Garzon, who sits on the Audiencia Nacional, Spain's highest criminal court, also rejected defence claims that Berlusconi was entitled to immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) .
Founded in 1949, PACE is Europe's oldest political body and includes 46 European states. It is not a branch of the European Union and is mainly concerned with human rights .
Garzon, who made international headlines in 1998 after he issued an arrest warrant for former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet, said that Berlusconi's PACE membership was "not an impediment to continuing proceedings against him" .
Nonetheless, the judge asked Berlusconi's lawyers to present a copy of their client's membership certificate, adding that he would seek authorisation from PACE to proceed against the billionaire media mogul .
Garzon also reopened an investigation against Marcello Dell'Utri, a long-time aide of Berlusconi and a senator with the centre-right chief's Forza Italia party .
The judge stressed that Dell'Utri's Italian parliamentary status did not make him immune from prosecution .
Dell'Utri, who played major role in creating Forza Italia in the early 1990s, has been convicted twice of tax fraud and false accounting in connection with the Berlusconi's advertising company Publitalia and is currently appealing a nine-year sentence for Mafia association .
A trial is already under way in Madrid of eight defendants involved in the Telecinco probe, which was first opened in 1997 .
The defendants include former Telecinco chairman Miguel Duran and two managers with Berlusconi's Fininvest family holding company, Alfredo Messina and Giovanni Acampora .
Prosecutors are seeking a one-year sentence for Acampora and a two-year sentence for Messina .
Berlusconi, who now heads the Italian opposition, has denied all personal responsibility for the running of Telecinco and has accused Spanish judges of acting under pressure from Milan prosecutors, whom he has long accused of hounding him for political reasons .
In July, Berlusconi was ordered to stand trial by a Milan court for alleged fraud at his Italian private TV network company Mediaset .
Thirteen others were also sent to trial, including Mediaset Chairman Fedele Confalonieri; British corporate lawyer David Mills, the estranged husband of Britain's Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell; and several top former Fininvest officials .
Defendants in the trial, to begin in November 21, face charges ranging from tax fraud, false accounting and embezzlement to money laundering .
For Berlusconi the most serious charge is tax fraud which carries a sentence of up to 6 years .
The defendants deny all wrongdoing .
Berlusconi, who is Italy's richest man, has been at the centre of numerous corruption trials involving his vast business empire but has never received a guilty verdict .
In some cases he has been cleared because of the statute of limitations or changes to the law introduced when he was in power.
