An Italian appeals court on Thursday began mulling the fates of two young American men who are hoping for some leniency after being convicted last year of murdering a Carabinieri police officer and sentenced to life imprisonment, Italy’s harshest punishment.
Verdicts and sentencing could come as early as mid-afternoon on the Thursday, Judge Andrea Calabria announced before retiring with the jury for deliberations.
Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, was hailed as a national hero after he was fatally stabbed 11 times with an attack-style knife in the street near the Rome hotel where the Americans were vacationing during the summer of 2019.
In May 2021, a lower court had convicted Finnegan Lee Elder, now 22, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, now 21, of the slaying as well as of attempted extortion in connection with a botched attempt to buy some cocaine in a Rome nightlife district. The two, both from northern California, were also convicted of resisting a public official and carrying an attack-style knife without just cause.
Elder and Natale-Hjorth have been serving their life sentences in separate Rome prisons.
On Thursday, Elder addressed court, just before deliberations began.
“At 22 years of age and with three years in prison, I had much time to reflect,’’ Elder said, speaking in heavily accented, recently acquired Italian. He expressed “remorse for the pain I caused" and for the “endless mourning” suffered by Cerciello Rega’s family.
The officer had just returned to duty from his honeymoon when he was slain during a plainclothes mission in which he and his patrol partner confronted Elder and Natale-Hjorth in the pre-dawn hours of July 26, 2019.
Both Elder and Natale-Hjorth testified in their first trial that they thought the officers were thugs out to retaliate after the thwarted deal to buy cocaine hours earlier in another part of Rome.
Elder has insisted he stabbed Cerciello Rega in self-defense because he feared the heavyset officer was trying to strangle him.
Prosecutor Vincenzo Saveriano asked the court to uphold both defendants’ convictions and confirm Elder’s life sentence. The prosecutor argued for Natale-Hjorth’s convictions also to be upheld, but said his sentence should be reduced to 24 years.
“Elder doesn’t deserve forgiveness," Saveriano said in his final argument Thursday. As for the co-defendant, Saveriano noted that Natale-Hjorth’s fingerprints were found by police on a panel of a false ceiling in the American’s hotel room, where he hid the knife after it was cleaned of blood.
Natale-Hjorth testified at the first trial that he grappled with the slain officer’s plainclothes partner, Carabinieri officer Andrea Varriale. He insisted that he was unaware of the stabbing but that he later hid the knife.
The defense has argued that the American vacationers had no way of knowing that the victim and his partner, each wearing summer shorts and casual shirts, were plainclothes officers.
Prosecutors alleged Natale-Hjorth devised a scheme to get back 80 euros ($88) the Americans paid for the cocaine they didn’t receive. Angered by the swindle, the tourists snatched the knapsack of the deal’s alleged go-between and demanded their money back in exchange for returning the bag, with the go-between’s cell phone inside, the prosecution has alleged
The judge banned media from the appeals trial courtroom, citing the small size of the room during the pandemic, and didn't allow any witness testimony.
