Former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti leaves at the end of a ceremony in central Rome in this January 24, 2005 file photo. Andreotti, seven times Italian prime minister and one of the country's most prominent post-war figures, has died at the age of 94, family sources said on May 6, 2013.[Photo/Agencies]

ROME - Seven-time Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti, one of the central figures of Italian politics for decades, died on Monday at the age of 94.

A former leader of the Christian Democrat (DC) party which dominated post-war Italy until a series of scandals led to its collapse in the 1990s, Andreotti had suffered from ill health in recent years.

His last term in office as prime minister was from 1989 to 1992. Even when he was not fronting things himself, most notably in the mid 1980s, Andreotti was always said to be pulling most of the strings behind the scenes.

Though he contributed to turning Italy into one of the world's biggest economic players, Andreotti was a strongly controversial figure at the center of long trials for allegedly helping the Mafia, which Italian courts eventually rejected.