Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi passes away at 86

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire businessman who created Italy's largest media company before transforming the political landscape, has died on Monday, reported local media.

Berlusconi, who was 86, had been suffering from leukaemia "for some time" and had recently developed a lung infection.

Berlusconi's Forza Italia party is part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing coalition, and although he himself did not have a role in government, his death is likely to destabilise Italian politics in the coming months.

Berlusconi's death leaves a "huge void" because he was a great man, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said on Twitter on Monday.

"I loved him very much. Farewell Silvio," Crosetto wrote.

Berlusconi's sex life was being played out in the world's press, including lurid details of his notorious "bunga bunga" parties.

Magistrates say he paid thousands of euros for sex with Moroccan-born nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, alias "Ruby the Heart Stealer", when she was under-age.

He denied this but admitted springing her from a police station by saying she was the niece of then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. A court eventually acquitted him of having sex with a youth, saying he was not to know she was under 18.

Although Berlusconi made light of his reputation as a philanderer, his second wife Veronica Lario did not and she asked for a divorce, saying she could not live with a man who "frequented minors".

With inputs from Reuters