The public prosecutor’s office has reopened the investigation into the death of Pier Paolo Pasolini. A new witness is to be interviewed.

Fifty-one years after the death of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened a new investigation into the murder of the writer and director, which took place at the Ostia Idroscalo on the night between 1 and 2 November 1975. "The case has been assigned to Public Prosecutor Silvia Santucci," explained lawyer Stefano Maccioni, who in recent days submitted the complaint to the investigating magistrates. "I make no secret of my emotion and satisfaction at the decision taken by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office to carry out new investigations into the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini," added the lawyer. According to what has emerged so far, the request was made in order to interview a new witness who could provide fresh evidence for the investigation.

The November application is linked – as stated – to “new evidence that has emerged, partly from viewing the footage provided by Rai from the news programme of the time, but above all based on the analysis of the data gathered so far, which must necessarily be considered as a whole and which leads to a single conclusion: it is not certain that Pelosi was alone on the evening of the murder, so it is essential to establish who was with him that evening”.

“The new application, submitted in November 2025 and subsequently supplemented in May 2026, is based on new evidence gathered by this defence team,” explained Maccioni. “We are confident that the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office will finally be able to provide the answers we have been seeking for far too many years. At the same time, we urge all those who have so far chosen to remain silent about what they know to come forward and speak out.”

In 2016 and 2023, applications had already been submitted to reopen the investigations, both of which were rejected by the public prosecutor’s office. The most recent investigation, against persons unknown, had instead been closed in 2015 after five years of inquiries. Launched in 2010, the investigations had in fact failed to identify any new suspects.

Giuseppe “Pino” Pelosi has been definitively convicted of Pasolini’s murder. It was he who brought about a major turning point in the case in 2005, when, during a television interview, he retracted the confession he had made thirty years earlier, claiming that he had not been alone on the night of the murder.