Spain's court of last resort has said there is no case to answer over a long-running tax fraud probe against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Ansa news agency quoted his lawyer as saying on Friday.

"After a 10-year ordeal... started by the Milan prosecutor who sent the case to Spain, it is beyond doubt that the behaviour of Silvio Berlusconi and Fininvest group was totally correct," said Niccolo Ghedini.

Berlusconi was accused of covering up a tax fraud of some €108-million ($145-million) between 1990 and 1993 while he was vice president of Gestevision Telecinco, part of his Fininvest group.

Spain's private Telecinco is a subsidiary of Gestevision Telecinco.

The probe, which first opened in 1997, was frozen when Berlusconi became a member of the European parliament and again during his second term as prime minister between 2001 and 2006 which gave him immunity from prosecution.

Crusading Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who led attempts to extradite the former Chilean leader General Augusto Pinochet, re-opened the investigation when Berlusconi lost the 2006 election.

Prosecutors alleged that his stake in Telecinco in the early 1990s exceeded the maximum 25-percent stake in a single television station under Spanish law, estimating it was nearer 50 percent and perhaps even more via offshore firms' holdings.

In July, a Spanish judge cleared eight other people in the case, including former Telecinco chairman Miguel Duran and two managers from Berlusconi's Fininvest holding company.

Earlier this month, a Milan court suspended a corruption trial against the politician and media mogul, after Italy's parliament passed a new law in July protecting him from prosecution.

AFP