The decision will either recommend a retrial or confirm the guilty verdicts against Finnegan Elder and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, who were both sentenced to more than two decades in prison.
An appeals court confirmed the homicide verdicts but commuted the life terms for both men, handing Finnegan Elder 24 years in prison and Gabriel Natale Hjorth 22.
Prosecutor Seeks Life Sentence for Americans in Killing of Italian Officer
Two San Francisco men, she said, instigated a “violent, deadly, disproportionate attack” in a confrontation with plainclothes military police officers.
An Italian prosecutor asked for the maximum sentence for Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, left, and Finnegan Lee Elder, second from right, during their trial on Saturday.Credit.Pool photo by Alessandra Taratino
March 6, 2021
ROME An Italian prosecutor on Saturday asked that two San Francisco men on trial in the 2019 killing of a military police officer in Rome receive the maximum sentence of life in prison.
Wrapping up a nearly four-hour summation in a stuffy Rome courtroom, the prosecutor, Maria Sabina Calabretta, argued that the two men acted with “homicidal intent” when they assaulted Deputy Brig. Mario Cerciello Rega and his partner on a July night in 2019.