U.S. citizen Finnegan Lee Elder, reacts after being found guilty, together with U.S. citizen Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, of the murder of the Italian Carabinieri paramilitary police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, at the courthouse in Rome, Italy, May 5, 2021.
On Thursday, an Italian appeals court reduced the prison terms imposed on two American tourists who were originally sentenced to life in prison for the 2019 murder of a police officer in a case that shook Italy.
Finnegan Lee Elder, who was 19 at the time, was sentenced to 24 years in prison for fatally stabbing Mario Cerciello Rega in central Rome.
Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. During the attack, he was tussling with another police officer rather than handling the murder weapon.
The pair said they acted in self defence because they thought the two policemen, who were not in uniform at the time, were thugs out to get them after a botched attempt to buy drugs.
