Four indicted for homicide of girl in Rome 'drug den'

(ANSA) - Rome, October 21 - Four people were indicted Monday in the murder of Desirée Mariottini, a 16-year-old girl found dead on the night of October 18-19 2018 in an abandoned building in Rome's Sam Lorenzo district.
    The four are accused of murder and group sexual violence as well as giving drugs to a minor.
    The four are Nigerians Alinno Chima and Mamadou Gara aka Paco, Ghanaian Yusef Salia and Senegalese Brian Minthe.
    "Our pain can never be calmed," said Desirée's grandmother leaving court.
    "No sentence will ever give us back our Desirée." The girl was allegedly drugged up, gang-raped and left to die in an abandoned building used as a drugs den in the San Lorenzo district in a case that shocked the nation.
    While Desirèe was unconscious she was abused several times by the four defendants, police said.
    As reconstructed, she had taken drugs as early as the afternoon of October 18, and died later on the night of 19 October. She was being abused while she was dying.
    The autopsy confirmed that Desirée Mariottini was a virgin before being raped.
    On October 24, 2018 then interior minister Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-migration League party, went to the abandoned building where the girl's body was found.
    Activists in the traditionally left-wing San Lorenzo district prevented Salvini from placing a rose outside the drug den where the victim was found and accused Salvini of exploiting her death. He returned later in the day unannounced and placed the flowers in front of the gate.