The three-time ex-premier and media mogul was acquitted of corruption in judicial acts in one of several trials stemming from the case of his paying an underage prostitute named 'Ruby' for sex, in which he was acquitted because he did not know she was just 17 at the time.

Ruby, whose real name is Karima El Mahroug, was also acquitted Wednesday, as were all 29 defendants.

Reacting to the acquittal, Berlusconi said he was pleased that his name had been cleared.

"I have finally been acquitted after more than 11 years of suffering, of mud-slinging and incalculable political damage, because I was lucky to be judged by magistrates who succeeded in remaining independent, impartial and correct in the face of the unfounded accusations that had been made against me," the 86-year-old three-time ex-premier, media mogul and centre-right Forza Italia (FI) leader on said via social media.

Berlusconi's lawyer said his client was above all "relieved".

"It is an acquittal with the widest and fullest possible formula, I cannot but be enormously satisfied, three out of three!," the lawyer, Federico Cecconi, said, referring also to the previous acquittals for the two other strands of the case, in Siena and Rome.

Premier Giorgia Meloni said Berlusconi's acquittal is excellent news.

"Silvio Berlusconi's acquittal is excellent news that puts an end to a long judicial affair that also had important repercussions on Italian political and institutional life," she said on Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, No.2 in Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, said he and his fellow party faithful were happy with the verdict.

"FI celebrates Berlusconi on this great day for justice", he said, adding that the trial had been "a stitch-up against Berlusconi".

Longtime Berlusconi ally and right-wing League party leader Matteo Salvini said "I'm very happy about Silvio's acquittal".

FI members said the sentence ended what they called a "politically motivated trial".

El Mahroug said that Ruby, the stage name she assumed as a teenage Moroccan runaway exotic dancer, had been "a complete invention".

Shaking a prosecutor's hand, she said that a "heavy weight has been lifted from me".

Prosecutors said they would wait for the explanation of the verdict before deciding whether to appeal.

"There is no bitterness, it is our judicial system, we worked with deep conviction and the evidence from our point of view gave us the conviction, which remains, that there was false testimony and corruption", assistant prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano said.

Berlusconi himself did not immediately comment on the outcome of the trial.

Twenty young women who were guests at the parties were cleared, like Berlusconi, with the fullest form of an acquittal in Italy, "because the act was not committed".

Just before the verdict, on Monday night, the government withdrew its stance as civil plaintiff in the trial, a position that then premier Poalo Gentiloni assumed in 2017, arguing that the office of premier had been badly tarnished in the case.

Government sources said arguments made by the Gentiloni government no longer held true.

Prosecutors in the 'Ruby III' trial had requested a jail term of six years for Berlusconi and a five-year term for Ruby (El Mahroug).

There were 28 other conviction requests, including one year and four months for former centre-right Forza Italia (FI) senator and Berlusconi factotum Maria Rosaria Rossi, two years for Berlusconi magazine journalist Carlo Rossella, and up to five years for the 20 young women who attended what the ex-premier called "elegant soirees" — all for perjury.

Berlusconi denied paying anyone to lie for him and insisted the alleged bunga bunga parties were innocent affairs.

He says he is the victim of politically inspired judicial persecution, as in the many other cases he has faced over the years, which have resulted in only one final and definitive conviction, for tax fraud, that saw him ejected from the Senate for several years.

Berlusconi's middle daughter Barbara said her father "is the most persecuted man in the world, with 86 trials and more than 4,000 hearings".

She said the trial "is a surreal trial, that should not have even started.

"A leftover from the first Ruby trial, in which my father had already been acquitted with the full formula."

ANSA