ROME-- Seven-time prime minister and senator for life Giulio Andreotti has been rushed to hospital with heart problems said to be complications of a respiratory infection.

 Doctors at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where Andreotti has been placed in intensive care, are calling the 93 year-old’s condition "serious but stable." They could not give any more detailed prognosis at this time, but the senator is said to be in good spirits.

 Andreotti was one of the major figures in post-war politics, a Christian Democrat first appointed to the cabinet as Minister of the Interior in 1954 and eventually serving at the head of seven administrations in the 1970s and 80s, the so-called anni di piombo in which extremist political violence terrorised the country. His time in office was turbulent, mired in scandals connecting him to far-right activists and to the Mafia, earning him the nickname 'Beelzebub'.

  His alleged Mafia connections culminated in a trial in 1999 linking him to the murder of Mino Pecorelli, an investigative journalist who had accused Andreotti of involvement in the 1978 kidnapping of prime minister Aldo Moro. He was initially acquitted, but convicted on appeal in November 2002 and sentenced to 24 years imprisonment, subsequently quashed on appeal in 2003.

  After resigning as prime minister in 1992, he took up a life post in the Senate, where he remains a formidable presence. A biographical film about Andreotti’s controversial career, Il Divo, was the winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2008.