UPDATE 1-Mediaset chmn to stand trial for tax fraud-sources

(Adds Confalonieri comment in paragraph 9-10)

MILAN, April 23 (Reuters) - The chairman of Italy's biggest private broadcaster Mediaset (MS.MI: Quote, Profile, Research), owned by Prime Minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi, will stand trial for tax fraud, judicial sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Charges against Mediaset Chairman Fedele Confalonieri had been dropped in a trial about irregularities in the sale of television and cinema rights by the media company -- a trial in which Berlusconi stands accused.

But in January a Milan court allowed new charges of tax fraud between 2000 and 2003 submitted by prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale.

Formal irregularities had prevented the tax fraud charges against Confalonieri from being taken into consideration in the main trial on the sale of TV rights, but De Pasquale submitted a new request last week to Judge Gloria Gambitta.

Confalonieri's lawyer Vittorio Virga said the decision taken on Wednesday by Gambitta was "unwarranted".

The first hearing of the trial will take place on Oct. 21.

The charges of tax fraud against Confalonieri refer to 2001-2003.

"Confalonieri was never under inquiry for alleged frauds between 1995 and 2000," Virga said. "Suddenly he is charged with something which happened between 2001 and 2003, in which he is even less involved," he said.