Five-decade-old murder of 'Salo' director Pier Paolo Pasolini reopened

Stefano Maccioni, who has been asking for a fresh investigation for years, told AFP he hoped the new inquiry "would put an end to this story once and for all."

"I appeal to anyone who knows things about this case who has not had the courage to come forward to do so now," he said.

Pasolini, a leading left-wing intellectual, was found dead on a beach outside Rome on November 2, 1975.

A 17-year-old male prostitute, Giuseppe "Pino" Pelosi, was stopped while running away from the filmmaker's car and admitted killing him, saying Pasolini tried to rape him.

Pelosi was jailed for nearly 10 years, but in 2005 he recanted his confession, instead blaming three unnamed men with Sicilian accents.

Maccioni said DNA tests had shown there were other people at the crime scene and Pelosi himself may not have been present. The lawyer urged prosecutors to "put together the pieces of the puzzle."

In the years since Pasolini died, theories have swirled about why he was killed, ranging from blackmail to a hit by the far-right or mafia.

Pasolini lived his life unafraid of controversy as he took aim at bourgeois values, Catholic censorship and the threat of neo-fascism, while exposing the hardships of life through an often unbearably grim lens.

His last movie, "Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom," a critique of Fascist Italy, which was released after his death, caused outrage because of its graphic depiction of violence and sexual abuse.