Berlusconi leaves hospital after open heart surgery

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was released from hospital Tuesday three weeks after open heart surgery, looking thin and worn but vowing his political career is not over.

"I have to do two months of rehabilitation and then I'll be useful again to Italy and Italians," the 79-year-old media magnate told crowds of well-wishers and journalists outside the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.

Berlusconi, whose centre-right Go Italy party is in the political doldrums, denounced "a very serious deficiency of leaders" in the country, where the anti-establishment Five Star movement has become the most popular group in opinion polls.

The former premier will recover at his home in Arcore, near Milan in northern Italy, under the care of doctors from San Raffaele.

The operation last month to replace an aortic valve lasted four hours. Berlusconi's life had been "in danger and he knew it", his doctor Alberto Zangrillo said ahead of his admission to hospital.

Zangrillo said 30 seconds after doctors removed the tube, the flamboyant mogul and football club owner known the world over for his love of young women "was already joking" about how his night nurse had a body made for television.

Berlusconi, who dominated Italian politics for two decades, was given a new valve expected to last between 15 and 20 years.