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A picture of 16-year-old Desiree Mariottini hangs from a wall of the abandoned building where she was murdered, in Rome, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. Italian police have detained three suspects, all immigrants, in the slaying of a teenage girl who was drugged, gang-raped and left in an abandoned building known as a center for drug dealing in Rome. Authorities said Thursday that the three suspects, two Senegalese citizens and one Nigerian, were being held on suspicion of murder, group sexual assault and handing out drugs in the death late last week of 16-year-old Desiree Mariottini. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

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Flowers lie by a writing on a door reading in Italian "Justice for Desiree", outside the abandoned building where a 16-year-old girl was murdered, in Rome, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. Italian police have detained three suspects, all immigrants, in the slaying of a teenage girl who was drugged, gang-raped and left in an abandoned building known as a center for drug dealing in Rome. Authorities said Thursday that the three suspects, two Senegalese citizens and one Nigerian, were being held on suspicion of murder, group sexual assault and handing out drugs in the death late last week of 16-year-old Desiree Mariottini. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

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A girl talks on the phone as she sits next to a wall with a writing reading in Italian "Desiree Lives", in Rome, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. Italian police have detained three suspects, all immigrants, in the slaying of a teenage girl who was drugged, gang-raped and left in an abandoned building known as a center for drug dealing in Rome. Authorities said Thursday that the three suspects, two Senegalese citizens and one Nigerian, were being held on suspicion of murder, group sexual assault and handing out drugs in the death late last week of 16-year-old Desiree Mariottini. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

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Italian police arrest 4th suspect in teen's murder in Rome

By Associated Press AP

PUBLISHED 2:13 PM ET May. 09, 2019

MILAN (AP) — Italian police have arrested a fourth suspect, an immigrant without legal documents, in the murder of a teenage girl in a Rome drug dealers' den.

The slaying has underlined the degradation and lawlessness in some areas of the Italian capital and put the spotlight on illegal immigration.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said a Gambian was arrested in the case Friday. He pledged that he and the other three suspects, also African immigrants without documents to live in Italy, would see "hard prison and then home!"

The four men are being held on charges of murder, sexual violence and distributing drugs.

Police say 16-year-old Desiree Mariottini had been drugged, gang raped and then left in an abandoned building used by drug dealers. Residents have protested the general neglect of the neighborhood.