Former prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici is being discharged from Mater Dei Hospital.

Mifsud Bonnici, 89, who served as prime minister between 1984 and 1987, was taken ill 10 days ago.

He was admitted to hospital on August 21 in a critical condition, but, by the following day, relatives had told Times of Malta he was stable and able to communicate with them.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Robert Abela told his Facebook followers he had spoken to Mifsud Bonnici, and the former PM was being discharged from hospital.

Known simply as Karmenu or KMB, Mifsud Bonnici had a chequered public career. In 1980, he was appointed deputy leader of the Labour Party and in 1982 Dom Mintoff made him the surprise choice to succeed him.

Mifsud Bonnici actually clashed with Mintoff in his dispute with the Church in the 1960s. That is before he went on to become the point of Mintoff’s spear in a new Church-State dispute in the 1980s before finally taking over from Mintoff himself in 1984.

He served as Labour leader until 1992 before another electoral defeat. He then went on to set up the Campaign for National Independence, a movement against Malta's membership of the EU.