Ceriello Rega murder, reduced the penalty to Gabriele Natale Hjorth: definitive sentence to 10 years and 11 months. All key steps of the judicial path

Closes with a new penalty reduction The long judicial path of Gabriele Natale Hjorth, the young American involved in theMurder of the vicebrigadier of the carabinieri Mario Cerciello Rega, killed in stabbed in Rome On the night of 26 July 2019. With the new sentence, the second Court of Assizes of Appeal of Rome sentenced Hjorth a 10 years, 11 months and 25 days of imprisonment, reducing the decisive sentence of the previous appeal by five months.

A technical adjustment, linked to a calculation error of the sentence highlighted by the Cassation, which last March had ordered a third appeal process, but only on the sanctioning treatment, definitively confirming the criminal liability of the accused.

The murder

The murder took place in the heart of Trastevere, during An attempt of extortion implemented by Hjorth and compatriot Finnegan Lee Elderboth nineteen on vacation in Italy. After A failed attempt to buy drugs, the two stole Sergio Brugiatelli’s backpack – considered an intermediary – and asked for the return in exchange for 100 euros and cocaine. Brugiatelli alerted the carabinieri. At the meeting, Cerciello and colleague Andrea Varriale showed up in Borghese. During the scuffle, Elder extracted a knife, which he had brought from the United States, and influenced eleven stabbed to the deputy thuds, who died shortly after in the hospital.

The two Americans fled to the hotel. It was there that Hjorth hid the knife in the false ceiling of the room. Both had already purchased tickets to leave Italy.

Life imprisonment and overhaul of penalties

In May 2021, the Court of Assizes of Rome both condemned to life imprisonment. The defenses resorted. On appeal, the penalties were reduced: 24 years for Elder (author of the crime) and 22 for HJorth, accused of competition in murder. But the Cassation, in March 2023, partially accepted the appeals: For Hjorth he ordered a new appeal, believing that he should not answer the full competition, but of an anomalous competition in murderan attenuated form of responsibility, because it would not have foreseen the murder as a consequence of the action.

The bis appeal ended with a sentence of 11 years and 4 months. Then, in March 2025, the Cassation intervened againrecognizing a technical error in the calculation of the sentence. Hence the third appeal, and the further five -month reduction sanctioned with yesterday’s sentence.

“It is a minimum moral satisfaction,” commented the lawyer Franco Coppi, lawyer of the Cerciello Rega family, “taking into account that we started from life imprisonment e If they are getting away, all in all, cheap. The sentence confirmed the existence of aggravating circumstances. We knew there was a calculation error that was correct and led to a decrease of a few months “.

The reading of the defense is different. “The visible disproportion of the criminal judgment against the two defendants was not remedied,” said the lawyer Francesco Petrelli, who defends Hjorth together with his colleague Fabio Alonzi. «Now dwe have to wait for the reasons to understand how there can be so little difference between the willful misconduct and the fault in terms of punishment ».

During the indictment, the attorney general had called Hjorth “the negative protagonist of this story, a criminal protagonist”: according to the accusation, It is he who is looking for drugs, formulates the extortion request, organizes the meeting and knows that Elder has a knife with him 18 centimeters. And it is always he who hides him after the crime.

Today Gabriele Natale Hjorth is under house arrest with an electronic bracelet, in the grandmother’s house in Fregene. He was present in the classroom to read the device. For the other defendant, Finnegan Lee Elder, the sentence has already been definitive for some time: 15 years and 2 months for murder, after the Cassation confirmed the full responsibility for the crime, arranging a partial appeal only for the evaluation of the aggravating circumstances and the crime of resistance.