ROME -- A 69-year-old
woman claiming to be the secret illegitimatedaughter of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini said his corpse
should be dug up for DNA testing if his descendants refused to take
blood tests.
Cladia Apriotti says she was the product of a one-night union between
Il Duce, then 44, and a 19-year-old Rome aristocrat, but that she was
whisked away from her mother to avoid scandal and was raised by
illiterate farmworkers.
Her lawyer has applied to a Rome court for a ruling on her paternity
and maternity.
``I am the secret daughter of Benito Mussolini and Princess Sveva
Vittoria Colonna,'' Apriotti told popular magazine Oggi, saying her
age and poor health had finally prompted her to go public after a
lifetime of torment.
``Before
leaving this earth for good, I claim the right to my truename,'' she said. ``I want to give a meaning to my tormented life and
my sorrow.''
Apriotti, whose purse-lipped, imperious stare gives her a strong
resemblance to the dictator who ruled Italy from the early 1920s until
1943, said Mussolini never knew she existed.