Natale-Hjorth has prison sentence reduced again.
An Italian appeals court on Tuesday reduced the jail sentence of Gabriele Natale-Hjorth, one of two American men convicted in the 2019 killing of a Carabiniere police officer in Rome.
Natale-Hjorth was sentenced to 10 years, 11 months and 25 days for the murder of deputy brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega who was stabbed to death on July 2019.
Last July the appeals court reduced Natale-Hjorth’s sentence to 11 years and four months, halving his original 22-year sentence.
The latest five-month reduction marks the third time Natale-Hjorth’s case was addressed at the appeals court.
Natale-Hjorth is currently under house arrest, monitored with an electronic bracelet at his grandmother’s house in Fregene, a coastal area near Rome.
The other US man convicted of the killing, Finnegan Lee Elder, is serving a definitive term of 15 years and two months, reduced by the appeals court last summer from 24 years.
Reacting to the latest ruling, Cerciello Rega’s widow Rosa Maria Esilio lashed out at the “stinging denigration” of her “young husband, who died in the line of duty”.
“This lengthy trial, characterised by shameful procedural disloyalty in confusing responsibilities and motives for the sake of narrow-minded interests in reducing sentences, has only added to the pain of the violent death of my husband Mario”, she added in a statement released through her lawyer.
Background to the case
On the night of 26 July 2019 two young Californians, Gabriele Natale-Hjorth (20) and Finnegan Lee Elder (19), were on holiday in Italy.
They met up in Rome and tried to buy cocaine in the popular night-life area of Trastevere.
A man described as an intermediary, later identified as Sergio Brugiatelli, helped them find a dealer who allegedly sold them crushed aspirin instead of drugs.
In retaliation, the pair stole Brugiatelli’s rucksack, demanding the return of their money plus cocaine in exchange.
However Brugiatelli informed the Carabinieri of the situation, with undercover officers Mario Cerciello Rega and Andrea Varriale going to the designated meeting point in the upmarket Prati district, in place of Brugiatelli.
During the altercation Elder used an 18-cm serrated-edge combat knife to stab Cerciello Rega, who was not armed, while Natale-Hjorth wrestled with Varriale.
Cerciello Rega was stabbed 11 times. The 35-year-old officer later died from his wounds in hospital.
The next day police tracked down Elder and Natale-Hjorth to a nearby hotel where the murder weapon was found concealed behind a ceiling panel.
The killing of Cerciello Rega, who had just returned from honeymoon, shocked Italy and led to a huge outpouring of public sympathy for his widow.
Huge crowds turned out for his funeral at the same church where he had been married just 43 days before.
