Coke found in Sacchi suspect's car

(ANSA) - Rome, December 2 - Carabinieri police in Rome found 31 grams of cocaine in the car of Paolo Pirino, a suspect with a previous criminal record who was arrested in connection with the recent murder of personal trainer Luca Sacchi. Police found the drugs, which were divided into bags and hidden in the vehicle's rear wheel well, during a search ordered by the prosecutor's office.
    Pirino is one of two persons who have been charged in connection with the murder, on the night of October 23.
    Investigators are trying to reconstruct the roles played by the people at the scene of the crime that evening on Via Franco Bartoloni, starting from Giovanni Princi, a man with a criminal record who was Sacchi's friend.
    Princi seems to have been in contact with a network of drug pushers that included Valerio Del Grosso and Paolo Pirino, who are accused of being accomplices to murder.
    Del Grosso is said to have pulled the trigger, shooting Sacchi in the head.
    On Friday the Ukrainian girlfriend of the personal trainer whose murder sparked concern over lawlessness in the Italian capital was placed under investigation in a drugs probe.
    Anastasia Kylemnyk, the 25-year-old girlfriend of 24-year-old Sacchi, initially told police she had been attacked with a baseball bat and Sacchi was shot in the head after trying to defend her near a Roman pub, the John Cabot.
    But police subsequently found a large amount of money in her backpack.
    Police said Friday they found 70,000 euros in her backpack.
    They said it was intended to be used to buy 15 kilogrammes of drugs.
    "She had a central role in the drugs deal," said the preliminary investigations judge.
    Prosecutors said there was "no evidence" that Sacchi knew about the drugs deal.
    The woman again refused to collaborate with prosecutors on Friday.
    "Anastasia shows with her surprising refusal of all collaboration with investigative organs to bring her boyfriend's murderers to justice her clear, predominant desire to preserve the criminal ties acquired in the drugs underworld, with which she does not intend to break off links," the prosecutors said.
    "If Anastasia did wrong she should pay for it," said Sacchi's parents.
    Investigators say the murder was a consequence of the deal going wrong, but the exact dynamic is still not known.
    Prosecutors served five detention warrants in the case on Friday including one for Kylemnyk who must now report to a Carabinieri barracks every day.
    Her home in the capital, where she lives with her parents, was searched.
    A 24-year-old man, a friend of Sacchi's who was not named and who was allegedly in on the deal, was among the five served detention warrants.