Murder Cerciello Rega, because the sentence of the two Americans was annulled

The sentence that condemned Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriele Natale Hjorth, accused of the stabbing death of the deputy sergeant of the carabinieri, Mario Cerciello Rega, has been annulled. The Cassation, accepting the argument of the defense, established that there will be an encore appeal to reevaluate the positions of the two American citizens.

For Gabriele Natale Hjorth the 22-year sentence for the murder of the carabiniere killed in Rome has been annulled: the charge of complicity in murder will be re-evaluated.

It has been arranged a new appeal also for Finnegan Lee Elder, sentenced to 24 years by the Court of Appeal of Rome, but only with regard to the crime of resisting a public official and the aggravating factors. This means that the Court considers the defense thesis credible, according to which the two Americans did not know they were facing two carabinieri. A position that will lead to a lightening of sentences.

«There will be a new trial on the heart of the matter whether or not the carabinieri have qualified themselves as belonging to the forces of order. And this opens up the space for a new quantification of the sentence», explained the lawyer Roberto Capra, who defends Finnegan Lee Elder. «From the first minute we examined the procedural papers we understood that Elder had absolutely not understood that he was facing two carabinieri. That surgery was anomalous. In practice there will be a new trial and it is not possible, without reasons, to establish what the penalty may be”.

The deputy attorney general of the Cassation, Francesca Loy, had asked for the inadmissibility of Elder’s appeal and the rejection of that of Hjorth, arguing that the carabiniere “was unarmed and after identifying himself he was killed with 11 stab wounds in 20 seconds”. According to Loy, the sentences reconstructed the story down to the smallest detail: «Cerciello had no reason to attack Elder, who immediately pulled out the knife knowing that Cerciello was a carabiniere because he had qualified. It is excluded that the defendants could have thought that the two plainclothes carabinieri were criminals». On Natale Hjorth, he specified: “He is the one who makes the main contribution to the attempted extortion, he knows that Elder has a knife with him and it is he who, after the murder, hides the weapon in the false ceiling of their hotel room”.

The murder of Cerciello Rega

Mario Cerciello Rega is killed on July 26, 2019: Natale Hjorth and Elder, then nineteen, in Trastevere, they were trying to buy drugs. After an unsuccessful attempted purchase, the two stole the backpack of Sergio Brugiatelli (key witnesses, who died in 2021), who had shown them the pusher from which they could get supplies. Natale Hjorth and Elder demanded 100 euros and cocaine to return the backpack, and Brugiatelli called 112. To stop the attempted extortion, Cerciello and his colleague Andrea Varriale were sent: when the military tried to block them, Elder he struck Cerciello with 11 stab wounds, then fled with his friend to the hotel. For Cerciello, taken to the hospital, there was nothing more to do: he died shortly after in the hospital. In the hotel room of the two Americans, the military found a large knife with an 18-centimeter blade hidden in the false ceiling of their hotel room: Elder had brought it from the United States, hidden in a trolley. Natale Hjorth and Elder were “ready to leave Italy”: they had already bought their plane tickets.

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