Rome – Suspicions that a famous Italian porn queen might have faked her death 11 years ago are unfounded, a Rome prosecutor said on Friday in recommending that the case be shelved .

Prosecutor Attilio Pisani opened an investigation in September into the death of Moana Pozzi, who died of liver cancer in a French clinic in September 1994 at the age of 33 .

Consumer rights’ group Coisuc pressed for the case to be reopened in the belief that Italy’s best-known porno star could still be alive, having faked her death to escape her past and begin a new life .

Pisani conceded at the start of the probe that the official versions of Pozzi’s death were full of “flaws and inconsistencies”. But he said on Friday that his investigations had turned up no facts or circumstances over which charges could be drawn and asked that the case be closed .

Last year, prosecutors shelved another inquiry into the blonde actress’s death requested by publisher Brunetto Fantauzzi, who has written a book about Pozzi – Moana: A Political Mystery – and holds the rights to some of her autobiographical writings .

Fantauzzi believes the cancer story is a hoax and has speculated that Pozzi perhaps wanted to hide her links to one or several top politicians .

In her own memoirs, published in 1991 under the title The Philosophy of Moana, Pozzi referred to numerous liaisons with important people but named no names .

Her death followed a major upheaval on the Italian political scene, when vast corruption scandals brought down the once dominant Christian Democrat and Socialist parties .

“In my book, I don’t say that Moana is alive but I ask for proof of how she died. There is no definite proof of her death,” Fantauzzi said recently .

According to Pozzi’s family, the actress passed away in a hospital in the French city of Lyon and her body was cremated. They say her ashes were buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery in Lerma in the northern region of Piedmont .

News of Pozzi’s illness was kept a secret until after her death, which was not immediately announced to the press .

Up until two months before her death, Pozzi could still be seen in fine form, jogging every morning in one of Rome’s central parks .

The suddenness and secrecy of her death fuelled rumours that perhaps it had been faked .

The family’s accounts of Pozzi’s death have only served to heighten the mystery .

Immediately after Pozzi’s death, the family said her body was cremated and the ashes scattered on the Matterhorn in the Alps, in accordance with her final wishes .

But they later changed their story and said the ashes were buried at Lerma although her name is not to be found in the cemetery’s burial records .

Meanwhile, the Lyon clinic where she is alleged to have died did not have cremation facilities and her cremation was not registered with the Italian authorities .

It also took seven months for the Italian authorities to receive Pozzi’s death certificate .

But another popular ex-porn star and former friend of Pozzi, Eva Henger, has told the press she is convinced the actress died of cancer .

“I saw the various stages of her illness… She was very weak and sometimes couldn’t even get out of bed,” said Henger, who was married to Pozzi’s former porn industry manager Riccardo Schicchi .

“She even phoned Riccardo from the clinic in Lyon to say she was doing well, that she had put on five kilos and wanted to get back to work immediately. Three days later, they informed us she was dead,” Henger said .

Pozzi, who came from an intellectual family, began a career as an aspiring starlet in 1981, straight after leaving school. She was given a score of small parts, even working under legendary director Federico Fellini playing the part of a curvaceous model in the movie Ginger and Fred .

However, she never made it big until 1987, when she hooked up with Schicchi and his Hungarian-born star Ilona Staller, better known by her stage name Cicciolina .

Staller became an international celebrity in 1987, when she won a parliamentary seat with the Italian Radical Party .

Moana later joined Staller in founding the Love Party, campaigning to legalise brothels, introduce better sex education and create ‘love parks.’ Pozzi unsuccessfully ran in the 1992 national elections and again in local elections in Rome in 1993 .

Although she never won a seat, her electoral stripteases on her first campaign trail and her more sober rallies the second time around won her thousands of fans .

She went on to become a popular TV talk show guest and hosted several variety shows .