Profile: Silvio Berlusconi

The perma-tanned Berlusconi is one of Italy's most colourful figures

Silvio Berlusconi is among Italy's richest men, estimated to be worth $6.5bn (£4.4bn) by US business magazine Forbes.

If controversy and flamboyance could be measured in the same way, he would probably come near the top of those tables too.

He won a third term as prime minister in 2008, two years after his centre-right coalition was voted out of power.

Mr Berlusconi, 72, owns a business empire that spans media, advertising, insurance, food and construction.

He also owns Italy's most successful football club, AC Milan, admits he has had cosmetic surgery, has fought off repeated corruption allegations, and has been dogged by a sex scandal.

Indeed, it is his involvement in every part of Italian life that has angered his critics and exasperated his rivals.

For some Italians, Mr Berlusconi's success as a business tycoon is evidence of his abilities - a reason for him to run the country.

For others, Mr Berlusconi and his businesses have done better out of the relationship than Italy has.

Critics say he has benefited heavily from favourable media coverage.

The best political leader in Europe and the world Silvio Berlusconi, on himself Berlusconi in his own words Berlusconi in pictures

Mr Berlusconi's investment company controls Italy's three biggest private television stations. And, when he is in office, his appointees also run three public ones.

Opponents complain that an Italian voter cannot escape blanket coverage favourable to Mr Berlusconi.

They also say his control of the media extends beyond the news agenda, and that comedians who lampooned him when he was last prime minister never appeared on TV again.

Comeback

Even more controversial, however, are legal inquiries into Mr Berlusconi's business dealings.

Mr Berlusconi has been put on trial on at least six occasions for a variety of corruption charges. He has always denied wrongdoing and has always been cleared.

Laws passed by Mr Berlusconi's majority that gave him and other top public post-holders immunity from prosecution while in office were thrown out twice by the constitutional court, first in 2004 and again five years later.

Italy's comeback kid?

In November 2006, Mr Berlusconi collapsed at a party rally. He was later fitted with a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat.

At the time, he said he needed to slow down.

But a year later, he announced the creation of his long-planned new centre-right People of Freedom party (PDL), to incorporate his own Forza Italia and the right-wing National Alliance of Gianfranco Fini.

The party was launched in March.

With the support of the populist Northern League, it enjoys solid majorities in both houses of parliament.

'Irreplaceable'

The Italian leader appears younger than his years, partly because of a hair transplant and plastic surgery around his eyes, and is seen by many observers to be in a stronger position than ever.

His popularity is thought to have been boosted by his energetic reaction to a deadly earthquake that struck the central region of Abruzzo in April.

Such energy belied comments made during the 2008 campaign, which had suggested Mr Berlusconi's age was catching up with him.

"Those who think I'm too old to run a modern country may be right," he told a reporter.

During an election rally, he said he had been persuaded to run again by his party, which considered him "irreplaceable".

Entrepreneur

Born on 29 September 1936 into a Milan family, Silvio Berlusconi started honing his business skills at a young age.

He used his charm to sell everything from vacuum cleaners to university essays during his youth, activities complemented by stints as a crooner in nightclubs and on cruise ships.

This was just the warm-up.

Mr Berlusconi took Forza Italia into politics in 1993

In 1961, he graduated in law and started his business career in earnest, borrowing from the bank where his father worked to set up his first company, Edilnord.

With Edilnord, a construction company, Mr Berlusconi established himself as a residential housing developer around his native Milan.

Milano 2, comprising nearly 4,000 tasteful flats in a garden setting, was built on the city's eastern outskirts in the late 1960s.

Not content with providing the residents solely with housing, 10 years later he launched a local cable-television outfit - Telemilano - a project which would grow into Italy's biggest media empire, Mediaset.

While he accumulated TV stations, Italy's largest publishing house Mondadori, and the daily newspaper Il Giornale, Mr Berlusconi's company Fininvest also took nearly 150 other companies under its umbrella.

Enter stage right

In 1993 Mr Berlusconi founded his own political party, Forza Italia - Go Italy - named after a chant used by AC Milan fans.

In 1994, Mr Berlusconi became prime minister, forming a coalition with the right-wing National Alliance and Northern League.

But rivalries between the three leaders, coupled with Mr Berlusconi's indictment for alleged tax fraud by a Milan court, led to the collapse of the government just seven months later.

He lost the 1996 election to the left-wing Romano Prodi.

As ever, Mr Berlusconi refused to be deterred and spent the next few years re-organising his party.

By 2001, he was back on the throne, in coalition once more with his former partners.

Immunity

But allegations have continued to dog him.

He has been accused of embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting, and attempting to bribe a judge.

A number of cases have come to trial. In some cases he has been acquitted. In others, he has been convicted, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.

In others still, the statute of limitations has expired before the case could reach its conclusion.

Mr Berlusconi's government passed reforms shortening the statute of limitations for fraud.

Mr Berlusconi said allegations were dredged up to undermine him at the 2006 general election, which he narrowly lost to his old rival Romano Prodi.

He ended his term after heading the longest-serving Italian government since World War II.

But it did not take long for the perma-tanned, wrinkle-free politician to make another comeback.

However, despite appearing politically stronger than ever in the early part of his third term, Mr Berlusconi has recently been embroiled in a series of allegations about his personal life.

In May, Mr Berlusconi's second wife said she wanted to divorce him.

The prime minister has since been forced to deny allegations that he had paid prostitutes to attend parties at his official residences.

He faced further scandal when photos were published of topless women and a naked man at his villa on Sardinia, and also of a celebrity using the prime minister's official jet to fly to the island.

Mr Berlusconi says he has nothing to apologise for and denies ever having paid for sex.