ROME (AFP) - A member of Italys now-defunct royal family apologised Thursday for seeking compensation from the Italian state for their 56 years of forced exile, the ANSA news agency reported.
"Im sorry for the unpleasantness caused," Emanuele Filiberto told ANSA in an interview three months after his family, the Savoys, filed papers seeking 260 million euros (385 million dollars) in compensation plus interest.
Filibertos father Vittorio Emanuele, now 71, demanded 170 million euros in November and Filiberto, 35, asked for 90 million euros. Their bid sparked outrage among anti-Fascist and Jewish groups.
The Italian government rejected the demand out of hand, saying the state owed nothing to the former royal family.
"Italians were right to react the way they did," Filiberto said, adding: "Italy does not need this extra problem. I dont want to create a problem for Italy."
The male heirs of the Savoy family were sent into exile a year after the end of World War II because king Vittorio Emmanuel III had collaborated with the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini on anti-Jewish laws.
The king, who reigned from 1900 to 1946, co-signed laws that allowed nearly 8,000 Italian Jews to be deported by the occupying German forces starting in 1943.
Vittorio Emmanuel III abdicated in May 1946 and his son Umberto II succeeded him, but only for a month, before a referendum in June 1946 abolished the monarchy.
The family was allowed to return to Italy through a law reforming the constitution that was adopted in 2002.
Vittorio Emanuele was arrested last year for his alleged involvement in a vast pimping and illegal gaming network and put under house arrest.
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