Sharjah24 – AFP: Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister who reshaped Italy's political and cultural landscape while fending off multiple legal scandals, died Monday aged 86.
The billionaire media mogul had been suffering from a rare type of blood cancer.
Mourners laid flowers and notes outside Villa San Martino, Berlusconi's home near Milan, with one reading simply "we will miss you".
Berlusconi will have a state funeral in Milan's gothic Duomo Cathedral on Wednesday.
He had suffered ill health for years, from heart surgery in 2016 to a 2020 hospitalisation for Covid-19. Despite being re-elected to the Senate last year, he was rarely seen in public.
But he remained the official head of his right-wing Forza Italia party, a junior -- and occasionally troublesome -- partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's coalition government.
"Berlusconi was above all a fighter," Meloni said in a video message posted on Twitter.
"He was a man who was not afraid to defend his convictions, and it was precisely that courage and determination which made him one of the most influential men in Italy's history," she said.
As Berlusconi's body was moved from the hospital to Villa San Martino, tributes flowed from in from international leaders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Berlusconi controversially defended following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, said his death was an "irreparable loss" and he hailed him as a "true friend."
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