Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers on Wednesday rejected as "groundless," details provided by two 19-year-old would-be TV showgirls of alleged sex parties hosted by the Italian prime minister at his home near Milan, dpa reported.
Extracts of testimony furnished this week to prosecutors by the two women, Chiara Danese and Ambra Battilana, were published in two of Italy's main newspapers: Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica.
The women describe allegedly attending an evening party last August at Berlusconi's house after being promised by a friend of the premier's, a television news anchor, that they would be employed as showgirls.
At one stage during the evening, many of the dozen or so young women present began performing a striptease for the 74-year-old Berlusconi, Danese and Battilana said according to an excerpt published by Corriere della Sera.
Some of the women "allowed the premier to kiss their breasts and fondled his intimate parts," Danese and Battilana said.
According to the ANSA newsagency, Danese and Battilana's testimony is being regarded as "important," by prosecutors in Milan who in a trial against Berlusconi that began last week, accuse the premier of paying a Moroccan go-go dancer for sex when she was underage in terms of Italy's prostitution laws.
The dancer Kharima El Mahroug, who denies having had sex with Berlusconi, has however claimed that she attended parties at the premier's house which featured a sex game called the "bunga-bunga".
Berlusconi who denies any wrongdoing has described the parties as "elegant affairs."
On Wednesday his lawyers issued a statement in which they dismissed the Danese and Battilana's allegations.
"The new assertions that have appeared today in some newspapers regarding the evening parties at (Berlusconi's home) at Arcore are groundless," lawyers Piero Longo and Niccolo Ghedini said.
The trial's next hearing is set for May 31.