schema:articleBody
| - An Italian court convicted two young Americans Wednesday for the 2019 murder of a police officer while they were on a summer holiday in Rome, with both handed life sentences. Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, had admitted stabbing Mario Cerciello Rega during a late-night encounter while out with his friend Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20. But the Americans claimed self-defence, saying they were jumped from behind by men they thought were thugs following an earlier drug deal gone wrong. After Judge Marina Finiti read out the verdicts and the sentences following the year-long trial, the policeman's widow, Rosa Maria Esilo, sobbed audibly and hugged his brother, an AFP reporter in court said. As his lawyer whispered to him with his hand on his shoulder, Elder appeared close to fainting and was rushed out of the courtroom by police. Natale-Hjorth did not handle the murder weapon but helped hide the knife, and under Italian law faced the same homicide charge. ams/ar/har
|