Rome Prosecutors Reopen the Pasolini Case, Fifty-One Years On

Rome's prosecutors have reopened an investigation into the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the lawyer who requested it told AFP on Monday. The Local Italy carried the lawyer's account, and the New York Times reported the same decision as the capital greenlighting a new inquiry 51 years after the killing.

Pasolini was found bludgeoned to death in 1975. A young man confessed to the crime at the time but changed his story over the years, and the New York Times notes that the revisions in his account are what have kept the case unsettled. Neither report says what new material prompted the request, nor whether prosecutors have opened a file against persons unknown.

Reopening a file is not the same as proving a case. In Italian practice a prosecutor can register a new investigation on the strength of a complaint or a lawyer's submission, and such files can be shelved again; neither outlet reported that fresh forensic work had been ordered. What Monday's decision establishes is narrower: the case is live in the capital's courts again rather than a matter of history.