A Milan prosecutor has asked a court to convict and sentence Mr Cesare Previti, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's party, to 13 years in jail on corruption charges.
Mr Previti, who was defence minister in Berlusconi's first government in 1994, said the request, made on Saturday, was "absurd" and that he was sure a higher court would throw it out.
Mr Previti is accused along with two other lawyers of having received money from the former owners of Italian company SIR to bribe judges in Rome to rule in favour of the oil company in a litigation in the mid 1990s.
All the accused, including Mr Previti, the three judges who allegedly received the bribes, and SIR officials, have denied the charges.
Mr Previti told Italian television he was confident he could have the trial moved to another city since be believed that magistrates in Milan were politically biased against him. He said he had spoken to Mr Berlusconi and had been guaranteed his solidarity over the case.
The Italian parliament is debating a law that would allow defendants to have their trials moved to another court in another city if they have what the law calls a "legitimate suspicion" of bias against them.
The law passed in the lower house and is now before the Senate. Mr Berlusconi's centre-right government supports the law, which would be retroactive and affect court cases currently under way. The opposition centre-left has accused Mr Berlusconi of pushing passage of the law to protect himself and Mr Previti.