Pecorelli was killed in Rome's Prati district with four gunshots, on 20 March 1979. Former prime minister Giulio Andreotti was tried on charges of complicity in the murder of Pecorelli, but was acquitted along with his co-defendants that included Gaetano Badalamenti and Massimo Carminati, in 1999. Local prosecutors successfully appealed the acquittal and there was a retrial, which in 2002 convicted Andreotti and sentenced him to 24 years imprisonment. The Italian supreme court definitively acquitted Andreotti of the murder in 2003.