Italy's ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi regularly paid the young women who took part in his infamous "Bunga Bunga" parties, but since his death his family has decided to stop the funding, a newspaper said Friday.

For more than a decade, 20 young women received a monthly cheque for €2,500, with some living in flats belonging to Berlusconi's property empire, the Corriere della Sera reported.

According to Berlusconi, who died this year, these gifts were intended to compensate them for the damage to their reputations caused by their appearance in the billionaire's trials linked to the allegedly licentious parties he organised at his residences.

Berlusconi always insisted they were elegant dinners.

Following the death of the tycoon in June at the age of 86, the Berlusconi family has decided to stop the payments and to evict the young women who are now deemed undesirable, according to the newspaper.

One of Berlusconi's lawyers, Federico Ceccano, refused to comment on the story when contacted by AFP.

Berlusconi was on trial for six years, accused of bribing interested parties to lie about the nature of their attendance and performance at his parties, before being finally acquitted in February.

That acquittal was the culmination of a long legal battle that began in 2010 when Berlusconi, then head of government, was accused of abuse of power by protecting a young Moroccan nightclub dancer, Karima El-Mahroug. 

The young woman, known by her stage name Ruby, had been arrested for petty theft, but Berlusconi intervened to have her released, falsely claiming that she was the niece of Hosni Mubarak, then president of Egypt.

The following year, Berlusconi was accused of having paid Ruby, who in 2010 was 17 years old, for sex. 

Sentenced at first in 2013 to seven years in prison, he was finally acquitted in March 2015 by a higher court.