Remo Casilli/Reuters
- Two California students were sentenced in Italy to life in prison for killing an Italian police officer.
- They were convicted for murdering an unarmed officer during a botched attempt to buy cocaine in 2019.
- Finnegan Elder, now 21, is attempting to appeal his sentence.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Two US citizens have been given life sentences by an Italian jury for murdering a Roman cop in 2019 following a botched drug deal.
Finnegan Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, were convicted on Wednesday of murder along with assault, attempted extortion, carrying a weapon without just cause, and resisting arrest, after a high-profile trial.
The two were found guilty of killing Italian police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, when they were vacationing in Trastevere, Rome, in July 2019.
Elder and Natale-Hjorth, who were classmates from California's Bay Area, and were 19 and 18 respectively at the time of the crime.
The LA Times wrote that the jury delivered the verdict after deliberating for more than 12 hours. Elder and Natale-Hjorth were given the harshest penalty possible in Italy – life imprisonment.
According to a report by the Guardian, it was alleged during the trial that Elder stabbed Cerciello Rega 11 times with a 7-inch military-style knife - a charge that he admitted to. Under Italian law, prosecutors were able to charge Natale-Hjorth with murder as well - even though he acted in an accomplice capacity and did not stab Cerciello Rega himself.
CNN wrote that the two were trying to buy drugs in Rome's Prati neighborhood, a tourist district one mile from Vatican City when they were traveling in the area in July 2019. But they were swindled by an unnamed seller, who sold them powdered aspirin for 80 Euros ($96) instead of a gram of cocaine.
In retaliation, the students swiped a backpack from the middleman who introduced them to the drug dealer, demanding that the go-between give them cash and the cocaine they wanted before they returned the bag.
NBC reported that the middleman ended up informing the police. Two unarmed plainclothes cops - Cerciello Rega, and his partner, Andrea Varriale - showed up to nab Elder and Natale-Hjorth at the meeting point.
But the arrest attempt went awry. The BBC reported that when confronted, Elder pulled out a knife - a weapon that he had brought with him to Italy from the US - and stabbed Cerciello Rega repeatedly.
An AP story from April noted that Elder and Natale-Hjorth claimed in court that they were afraid and acted only in self-defense, as they believed at the time that the two officers were criminals.
Elder's lawyer Renato Borzone said during his closing arguments that his client had psychiatric problems, and a "constant fear of being attacked," which led to something "short-(circuiting)" when he was confronted by the cops, the AP reported.
According to local Italian news outlet RAI, Elder will be appealing his conviction and sentence. It is not known if Natale-Hjorth's lawyers will be appealing his sentence.
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