Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is currently in intensive care after suffering heart problems, his spokesman has confirmed.

 

The 86-year-old media mogul, who has been in and out of hospital in recent years, is in Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital where he routinely receives care.

 

Italian news agency Ansa said the Forza Italia party leader was admitted this morning and his condition was ‘stable’.

 

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who dominated the political stage for decades, is in intensive care after suffering heart problems, his spokesman has confirmed.

 

The 86-year-old media mogul, who has been in and out of hospital in recent years, is in Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital where he routinely receives care.

 

Italian news agency Ansa said the Forza Italia party leader was admitted this morning and his condition was ‘stable’.

Berlusconi, who won a seat in Italy’s Senate during general elections in September, has stirred controversy in recent months with his criticism of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenksy, putting him at odds with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.

 

The billionaire, whose Forza Italia party is part of a government coalition, is famed for having been embroiled in sex scandals, most notably for throwing erotic ‘bunga bunga’ parties at his villa during his time in office.

 

He was accused – but acquitted this year – of paying young starlets and others for ‘silence and lies’ about his notoriously hedonistic soirees, which he has always insisted were elegant dinners.

 

The verdict was the culmination of a legal battle which began in 2010 when Berlusconi – then prime minister – was accused of abusing his power to protect a young Moroccan nightclub dancer, Karima El-Mahroug.

 

Known by her stage name ‘Ruby the Heart Stealer’, she had been detained by police for theft, but was released after Berlusconi claimed she was the niece of then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

 

Berlusconi was charged with paying for sex with El-Mahroug in 2010 when she was just 17.

 

He was initially found guilty, but acquitted in 2014 after an appeals court found there was no proof he knew El-Mahroug was a minor.

 

Berlusconi, who has five children, was temporarily banned from political office after a conviction for tax fraud in 2013, for which he served a community sentence.

 

He then returned to the political front lines and was re-elected as a senator last year. He does not currently have a role in government.