Italy Reopens Investigation into Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1975 Murder

Italian prosecutors have reopened the investigation into the murder of writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, killed on 2 November 1975. The decision follows a request by lawyer Stefano Maccioni, who bases the new inquiry on DNA tests showing the presence of third parties at the crime scene.

Pasolini, a leading left-wing intellectual, was found dead on a beach outside Rome. A 17-year-old youth was detained at the time while fleeing in the filmmaker's car. The teenager confessed to the killing and claimed the director had attempted to rape him.

What does the new inquiry change?

The convicted man served nearly 10 years in prison. In 2005, he withdrew his confession. He then attributed the murder to three unidentified men with Sicilian accents. Maccioni said the genetic evidence suggests the man may not even have been present at the scene.

The lawyer has asked prosecutors to assemble the pieces of the case, and he called on anyone holding information to come forward. According to Maccioni, the aim of the new inquiry is to close the story definitively.

Decades of competing theories

Over the decades, theories about the motive have multiplied. They have cited blackmail, mafia attacks and far-right groups. Pasolini was a persistent critic of Catholic censorship, bourgeois values and neo-fascism. His public stances made him a polarizing figure in Italian cultural life.

His final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, was released after his death. The work, an indictment of fascist Italy, caused outrage at the time for its explicit scenes of sexual abuse and violence.

The reopening offers no guarantee of resolution. Yet for the first time in years, DNA evidence gives investigators a concrete trail. What it may finally establish, fifty years on, is whether the official version of Pasolini's death can survive contact with the facts.