He is due to appear at Bow Street Magistrates' Court with Said Mohammed Ayas to hear the result of committal proceedings.

Chief Stipendiary Magistrate Graham Parkinson reserved judgement after a hearing last month.

Mr Aitken, 56, faces charges of perjury, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perverting the course of justice.

Mr Ayas, also 56, is accused of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perverting the course of justice.

Jonathan Aitken with his daughter Victoria

The charges stem from Mr Aitken's unsuccessful libel action against The Guardian and Granada Television, when he sued over allegations that he allowed an Arab friend to pay his £1,000 bill for a stay at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

The Crown Prosecution Service decided in August not bring a case against Mr Aitken's 18-year-old daughter Victoria.

She was arrested in March, suspected of conspiring to pervert the cause of justice during her father's collapsed libel case, but the CPS ruled there was insufficient evidence for a reasonable chance of conviction.

Mr Aitken resigned as chief secretary to the treasury in April 1995 to fight his libel action, declaring he would take on the "cancer of bent and twisted journalism".

He described the case as "a crusade for truth" against malicious and false reporting.

He dropped his court bid in June 1997 after The Guardian produced new evidence showing his wife Lolicia had not paid a bill for a stay at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

He split up with his wife the day before he dropped the libel action.