MILAN, Italy — Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who resigned last year amid charges of abuse of power and engaging in prostitution with a minor, told a Milan court he never had sex with the underage woman at the center of the allegations.

“I never had intimate relations of any kind” with Karima El Mahroug, Berlusconi said today in prepared testimony. “I never put pressure on members of the Milan police force. I limited myself to a request for information.”

Berlusconi, 76, is standing trial as prosecutors probe his ties, and possible payments, to El Mahroug, a Moroccan woman known as Ruby Heart Stealer.

The former premier, whose party backs Prime Minister Mario Monti’s government in parliament, has previously denied the charges through his lawyer. El Mahroug says she attended at least one party at Berlusconi’s mansion near Milan in February 2010, when she was 17.

“I was sure she was 24, like she said,” Berlusconi said today, in front of a panel of three judges.

The former premier is also accused of abuse of power for allegedly pressuring police in Milan to release El Mahroug from jail after she had been detained for an unrelated offense.