Tiziana Cantone: Italian woman's body to be exhumed in murder probe

Cantone's mother Maria Teresa, seen here in 2019, earlier told investigators that her daughter was "hurting"

Prosecutors in the Italian province of Naples have ordered the exhumation of the body of Tiziana Cantone, thought to have taken her life in 2016, and opened a murder inquiry into her death.

The 31-year-old's body was found in her aunt's home in Mugnano near Naples on 16 September 2016.

She had earlier spent months battling to get a viral video that showed her having sex removed from the internet.

A post-mortem examination was not carried out on her body at the time.

Cantone was discovered in circumstances suggesting that she had taken her own life.

But on Friday, the public prosecutor's office of north Naples said a new investigation was necessary, citing inconsistencies with the original finding, including traces of DNA collected at the scene believed to belong to two men, Italy's Rai News reported.

• How Italy viewed Tiziana Cantone's death

Cantone's mother, Maria Teresa, told investigators in 2016 that while her daughter was "hurting", she was "always a healthy and normal girl".

The sex video posted online was reportedly watched by more than a million people.

In the months after the footage went viral, Cantone became the subject of jokes and abuse. She left her job, moved to Tuscany and was in the process of changing her name.

In a later court case, Cantone won a "right to be forgotten" ruling, which ordered the video to be removed from sites and search engines, including Facebook.

However, she had to pay €20,000 (£17,400) in costs.

By the time the ruling was made, the video had been copied and republished thousands of times.

The words "You're filming? Bravo", spoken by her in the video, were even printed on T-shirts, smartphone cases and other items.

"She was suffering from everything she saw and heard and in particular from the outcome of the legal proceedings, because she believed justice had not been done," her mother said following her death.

The exhumation of Cantone's body, ordered by deputy prosecutor Giovanni Corona, is due to take place next month.