Berlusconi hospitalised with heart problem

Milan, June 7 (IANS/AKI) Italy's controversial former Premier Silvio Berlusconi was admitted to hospital on Tuesday in Milan, his Forza Italy party said.

Berlusconi suffered "cardiac deficiency" and would undergo tests, the San Raffaele hospital here also said in a statement.

"A precise diagnosis and course of treatment will be established in the coming days," the it added.

Berlusconi, 79, is being cared for by his personal physician Alberto Zangrillo. He had a pacemaker fitted in a hospital in the US when he was 70.

Berlusconi was fine and his condition was not life threatening, according to an unnamed Forza Italia source.

"The hospital stay is a precaution and was planned for some time," the source said, adding that his heart problem was likely due to the stress of campaigning for the local elections held across Italy on Sunday.

The billionaire media mogul's political influence has declined since he left government in 2011. The candidate he backed for Rome mayor, property tycoon Alfio Marchini, was excluded in the first round of voting on Sunday after a poor showing.

Berlusconi, the leader of Italy's centre-right has held the office of prime minister a record four times, the last being from May 2008 to November 2011.

But he was ejected from Italian parliament in 2013 following his binding conviction for tax fraud for which he received a two-year ban from public office and a four-year jail sentence commuted to a year's community service.

Italy's supreme court last year acquitted Berlusconi of charges of paying for sex with a minor during his infamous "bunga bunga" parties at his mansion near Milan in 2010, which featured nude young women.

Also in 2015, a court in southern Italy found Berlusconi guilty of bribing a senator to switch factions, which helped topple a centre-left government in 2008. The court banned Berlusconi from holding any public office for five years.

--IANS/AKI

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