Berlusconi’s wife Veronica Lario files for divorce

The Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has another headache to deal with. His estranged wife, Veronica Lario, has filed for a formal separation - the first step in Italy before a divorce - and has made it clear that she is seeking a share of his £4bn fortune, made from media and banking. The news came as legislators loyal to Berlusconi proposed new laws that would restore his immunity from a series of charges including bribery.

Lario announced in May that she was splitting from her husband amid a welter of headlines about his relationship with a young model and wannabe actress called Noemi Letizia. Berlusconi, 73, had attended the 18-year-old's birthday party, and had given her the gift of a gold and diamond necklace worth £5,400. Lario declared herself disgusted at being married to a man who "associated with minors", and acidly pointed out that her husband "never attended the 18th birthdays of any of his children, even though he was always invited".

Since then she has maintained a dignified silence, and some associates of the prime minister had hoped, according to a book published in August, that Lario might even return to Berlusconi's side if he were to undergo treatment at a sex addiction clinic. Talking to her biographer Maria Latella, author of The Veronica Trend, Lario had said: "What upsets me is that a man like Silvio could have betrayed himself. He has done so much, but today people talk only about things which overshadow who he really was."

But any thoughts of reconciliation are now long gone. The Corriere della Sera reported that Lario's legal statement blamed her husband entirely for the split, setting the scene for just the sort of juicy divorce battle that the besieged PM had hoped to avoid.

Berlusconi will have to defend his friendship with Letizia, which he has always claimed was platonic, and will possibly have to deal with questions about his relationships with call-girls, including Patrizia D'Addario. She claims that she slept with the politician at his official residence, the Palazzo Grazioli in Rome.

The newspaper also said Lario was assembling a team of experts in inheritance and business law, suggesting that the 53-year-old actress, whom Berlusconi met 30 years ago, was hoping to dictate how the prime minister's fortune would be split between his five children. Berlusconi has two children from a previous marriage - Marina, 43, and Piersilvio, 40 - and three by Lario. She is reported as wanting to see the PM's money split equally five ways.

The sole bright spot on Berlusconi's horizon is the bid by his supporters to restore the immunity that all national politicians enjoyed until 1993. Italian legal associations attacked the move, saying it would end "at least 100,000" trials and that approving the measure would be like "saying to the victims of crime 'we were joking'".

But one man who would back it is the tax lawyer David Mills, husband of Labour minister Tessa Jowell, who faces prison time after being found guilty of accepting a bribe from Berlusconi, and who would escape jail if the bill was passed into law. ·