Italian justice reopens case of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s murder, 51 years after his death

Italian prosecutors have reopened the murder case of writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, killed in 1975, after a new complaint presented previously unknown testimony. The inquiry will revisit whether the teenager convicted of the crime acted alone, a question that has persisted for decades and could shed light on a killing whose official account has long been disputed.

Pasolini was found dead in Ostia, near Rome, on 2 November 1975. Pino Pelosi, then 17, was sentenced six months later to nine years and seven months in prison, but the judge said the evidence strongly suggested he had not been alone; Pelosi later gave conflicting accounts and died in 2017. Lawyer Stefano Maccioni, whose earlier attempts to reopen the case in 2010 and 2023 ended without findings, is now pursuing leads including new testimony, RAI recordings and possible links to Pasolini’s work and Italy’s political violence.