Berlusconi to leave hospital tomorrow

Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, who has been undergoing heart tests after fainting during a rally, will be discharged from a Milan hospital tomorrow, his doctor said.

Dr Alberto Zangrillo, a heart specialist at San Raffaele hospital, told reporters the 70-year-old Berlusconi had spent much of today working and receiving visitors in his private room at the hospital.

“He’ll go home on Wednesday,” Zangrillo said.

The Italian news agency Ansa reported that Berlusconi had phoned MPs from his conservative Forza Italia party today to assure them he would help lead a rally in Rome on Saturday against Premier Romano Prodi’s government policies.

Berlusconi spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti has said the former premier and media mogul suffered a very sharp drop in blood pressure on Sunday while making an emotional speech to political supporters in Tuscany.

His stay in hospital forced Berlusconi’s ongoing trial in Milan to be adjourned to Friday, his lawyer Niccolo Ghedini said on Monday.

Berlusconi and British lawyer David Mills, the estranged husband of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, are on trial for false accounting, embezzlement and tax fraud allegedly involving the purchase by Berlusconi’s Mediaset empire of TV rights for US movies. Both men deny wrongdoing.