(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, February 7 - One of Cosa Nostra's top jailed bosses said Friday he had met three-time former premier and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi three times when he was a fugitive from justice in Milan decades ago.

Giuseppe Graviano was testifying by videolink from his prison cell to a trial into bombings by the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia, in which he is a defendant.

"I met Silvio Berlusconi three times in Milan when I was a fugitive from justice," he told the court in Reggio Calabria.

It is not the first time allegations of links with the mafia, never proven, have been made against Berlusconi.

His longtime close aide Marcello Dell'Utri was convicted of external mafia association.

Berlusconi also employed a stable manager in the 1970s who was later proven to be a mafia boss, Vittorio Mangano, although Berlusconi denied all knowledge of this.

Berlusconi biographers and critics have said he knowingly employed Mangano to protect his children from the kidnappings that were rife at the time.

Berlusconi's lawyer Niccolò Ghedini denied Graviano's claim.

"The statements made today by Giuseppe Graviano are totally and flagrantly devoid of all foundation, detached from reality and well as blatantly defamatory," he said.

"It shoudl be observed that Graviano denies all responsibility even when faced with multiple definitive sentences which have sentenced him to several life terms for very serious crimes".

Ghedini said that after "26 uninterrupted years of jail, Mr Graviano suddenly makes statements clearly aimed at obtaining trial or prison benefits by inventing fanciful and false meetings, figures and episodes.

"We understand perfectly, among other things, the profound rancour towards Premier Berlusconi for all the laws promulgated by his governments against the mafia.

"Obviously all proper action will be taken with the judicial authorities". In November Berlusconi used the right to remain silent at a hearing in Palermo after being called as a witness in a trial into alleged negotiations between the State and the Sicilian Mafia to stop a bombing campaign in the early 1990s.

The media billionaire and Forza Italia leader also refused to authorize his appearance in the courtroom being filmed or photographed.

Berlusconi's convicted former aide Dell'Utri, who was released fom house arrest in December due to ill health, is a defendant in a trial into alleged negotiations between the State and Cosa Nostra in the early 1990s to stop a Mafia bombing campaign.

The former three-time premier and media mogul was an "assisted witness", meaning he could remain silent but if he chose to talk, he had to tell the truth.

Berlusconi is being investigated by Florence prosecutors in relation to a series of Mafia bombings in 1993, it emerged in September.

The news came out after Berlusconi's lawyers presented documentation to a court after the media magnate was called to testify in the State-mafia talks trial.

Two previous probes into Berlusconi and the bombings were shelved.

The ex-premier's lawyers, Franco Coppi and Nicolo' Ghedini, said in a statement that the fact Berlusconi was named as being under investigation was a formality, adding they were confident this probe would be closed too.

From May to August 1993, five car bomb attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan killed ten people and injured dozens.

In addition to the Uffizi, the targets were two venerable Roman churches - San Giovanni in Laterano and San Giorgio in Velabro - and a modern art gallery in Milan.

A powerful bomb also exploded near the home of a television talk show host, Maurizio Costanzo, a vocal Mafia opponent.

Costanzo escaped unharmed.

The previous year, 1992, Cosa Nostra bombs killed anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

Berlusconi first came to power in 1994 after ad man Dell'Utri helped set up his Forza Italia party from scratch.

Conspiracy theorists have suggested the bombings may have been at least partly an attempt to raise desires for a strongman to take power.

Graviano has been at the centre of other allegations by informants that he told mafiosi to vote for the now defunct Socialist party, who helped Berlusconi set up his media empire, in the late 1980s.

