Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy, who is in jail in the southern city of Potenza in connection with a prostitution and corruption probe, was questioned by investigating magistrates on Tuesday. The 69-year-old prince's lawyer, Lodovico Isolabella, told reporters afterwards that he was "very satisfied" with the way the questioning went.
"Vittorio Emanuele handled it firmly, decisively and accurately, giving the magistrates elements which they were forced to reflect on and which they will continue to ponder for the next few days," he said in a brief comment. The prince, the son of Italy's last king, was arrested four days ago together with 12 other suspects in a probe led by Potenza prosecutors.
Vittorio Emanuele is accused of recruiting prostitutes from Eastern Europe for a casino in Campione d'Italia, an Italian enclave in Switzerland. He is also accused of corruption in connection with the obtaining of licences and supply contracts for rigged gambling machines procured by Sicilian businessman Rocco Migliardi.
The prince, who denies all wrongdoing, is accused of using his high-level contacts to help sell the video poker games to the Campione casino and countries including Libya. Prosecutors also suspect him of links with Mafia clans. Migliardi was also arrested on Friday together with the mayor of Campione d'Italia, Roberto Salmoiraghi; Gian Nicolino Narducci, the prince's secretary, and Venetian businessman Ugo Bonazza. Migliardi and Narducci are being held in the same cell as the prince.
Six other suspects were placed under house arrest, including Migliardi's two sons and Salvatore Sottile, the spokesman of former foreign minister Gianfranco Fini who heads the rightist National Alliance (AN) party. Two others, businessman Achille De Luca and alleged conman Massimo Pizza, were already in jail in Potenza in connection with the probe.
Another 24 people are under investigation for possible crimes ranging from corruption, extortion and money laundering to blackmail and the aiding and abetting of alleged criminal activity. These include AN Senator Francesco Proietti Cosimi,
director general of the state monopolies' agency Giorgio Tino and another agency official, Anna Maria Lucia Barbarito. Tino and Barbarito are suspected of accepting bribes in return for giving out permits for the illegal gambling machines.
Fini's spokesman Sottile is accused of acting as an intermediary in the business but he is also suspected of helping aspiring showgirls find jobs at state broadcaster RAI in return for sex. Prosecutors say the Sicilian spokesman used rooms at the Foreign Ministry and the premier's office for his assignations with the women.
The allegations and published transcripts of taped conversations involving Sottile have sparked an internal investigation at RAI.
Vittorio Emanuele, meanwhile, denies all wrongdoing.
"I am confident in the magistrature and certain that I will be able to prove my innocence," he said at the weekend. Former Bulgarian prime minister and ex-child king Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who is Vittorio Emanuele's cousin, is also involved in the investigation while the prince's son, Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, is suspected of illegally shutting down an Internet site that was critical of his family.
Emanuele Filiberto said on Tuesday that the accusations against him were "absurd". He said he took legitimate legal action against a site, www.pravdanews.com, because it was "defamatory".
He also renewed his protests over his father's arrest.
"I hope the truth will come out quickly and my father will be released. It's unbelievable. They arrested a 70-year-old man at gunpoint as if he were some kind of bandit," he said. Emanuele Filiberto has accused the prosecutor in charge of the case, Henry John Woodcock, of seeking publicity. The Neapolitan prosecutor, whose father is English, has a reputation for launching high-profile cases not all of which, however, have resulted in trials.
Italy's former royal family was banished in 1946 following a national referendum introducing the Republic, their name tainted by the links of Emanuele's grandfather, Vittorio Emanuele III, with Fascism. Prince Vittorio Emanuele was nine years old when his father King Umberto II and mother Maria Jose' went into exile in Portugal.
The male members of the Savoy family were subsequently banned from entering Italy by the 1948 Constitution. But in November 2002, the Italian parliament lifted the ban. Although the Savoy family now regularly visit Italy, Prince Vittorio Emanuele has maintained his Swiss residency while his son lives in Paris.
The prince's popularity in Italy has fluctuated. His long campaign to get the Savoy ban lifted was damaged by his trial and eventual acquittal on manslaughter charges in the 1978 death of a young German tourist killed by a hunting gun following a quarrel at a Corsican marina. His cause also suffered a setback by the disclosure that he was a member of the secret masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2), disbanded by parliament in 1982 on suspicion of illicit right-wing activities.
A host of top figures in the armed forces, politics and the media were found to be on the P2 rolls - including former premier Silvio Berlusconi who has always claimed he joined as "a joke". Prince Vittorio Emanuele also did himself few favours a
couple of years ago by playing down the impact of the 1938 Fascist race laws signed by his grandfather.
