The chairman of the Italian car manufacturer Fiat, Cesare Romiti, has been ordered to stand trial for corruption.

Prosecutors allege Mr Romiti paid bribes of more than $1.5m to political parties, in connection with contracts for work on the underground railway system in Rome. They claim the payments were made between 1983 and 1992.

Cesare Romiti: accused of bribing politicians to win construction contracts

Mr Romiti is a major figure in Italian Industry and Fiat is the country's biggest employer.

The allegations that the Fiat chairman knew about bribes, paid to secure contracts for work, first surfaced several years ago.

According to the Italian news agency, ANSA, the case was reopened after new testimony in a related trial.

Umberto Beliazzi, the former head of Fiat in Rome, has also been ordered to stand trial on corruption charges.

Fiat's Financial Director Francesco Mattioli has been sentenced to 20 days in prison for involvement in the same crime.

Lawyers for Fiat said in a statement they were stunned that the charges had been resurrected.

Last year a Turin court found Mr Romiti guilty of falsifying the company's accounts, tax fraud and illicit funding of political parties.

He was given an 18 month suspended sentence. The conviction was a huge blow to Fiat's image.

Romiti took over as chairman of Fiat in 1996 when Gianni Agnelli turned 75. Mr Romiti began a successful partnership with Agnelli in the mid-1980s. As managing director he helped to reshape and restructure the company in the 1990s.

BBC Rome correspondent Orla Guerin said: "The charges against him are an echo of the Tangentopoli, or Bribesville, era when many of the leading figures in Italian public life were drawn into the prosecutor's net.

"No date for the trial has been announced, and given the slow pace of Italian justice it could be some time away."

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