Italian court trims US men’s jail time in officer’s slaying

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — An Italian appeals court has reduced the sentences of two young American men who had been hoping for leniency after being convicted last year of murdering a Carabinieri police officer. The court on Thursday upheld the previous convictions of Finnegan Lee Elder, 22, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 21. But instead of the life sentences the lower court gave them last year, the appeals court ordered Elder to serve 24 years and Natale-Hjorth, 22 years. Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, was hailed as a national hero after he was fatally stabbed 11 times with a knife in the street near the Rome hotel where the Americans were vacationing in July 2019.