Italy’s Highest Court Orders New Trial for US Tourists Over Policeman’s Murder

Italy’s Highest Court Orders New Trial for US Tourists Over Policeman’s Murder
U.S. citizens Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, accused of killing Carabinieri military police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, attend a hearing of their trial in Rome on May 5, 2021. Remo Casilli/Reuters
Reuters
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ROME—Italy’s highest court late on Wednesday ordered two American tourists to stand a new trial for the 2019 killing of a policeman in central Rome following a botched attempt to buy drugs, but upheld a murder sentence for one of them.

Last year an appeals court had convicted Finnegan Lee Elder, who was 19 at the time, to 24 years in jail for stabbing Mario Cerciello Rega to death in Rome, while his friend, Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was handed a 22-year term.