The former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is receiving intensive treatment at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital.
According to reports in the Italian press, the 86-year-old is in intensive care in the hospital’s cardiology unit.
According to Rai News, he was taken to the hospital after experiencing “shortness of breath,” and his situation is now stable.
After receiving routine checkups, Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party is a member of the alliance that controls the government, was released from the same hospital on Friday.
He posted a picture of himself on Palm Sunday in a tulip-filled yard at his house, Arcore, close to Milan. He previously stated that he had returned to his job and was “ready to engage, as always,” for his country.
The billionaire media tycoon led three Italian governments between early 1994 and 2011; he has had several episodes of ill-health in recent years.
In 2016, he underwent surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve and was hospitalised with Covid-19 in September 2020. He subsequently suffered from lingering ailments related to the virus, an experience he described as “the worst of my life”.
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This week, he celebrated the rightwing coalition’s local election win in the northern Friuli Venezia-Giulia region.
In February, the scandal-tainted politician was acquitted on allegations of bribing witnesses in a case linked to his “bunga bunga” parties, which had dogged him for more than a decade.
Berlusconi claimed he was the victim of “politically inspired judicial persecution”. He also denied paying anyone to lie for him and said the parties were innocent affairs.
