(26 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rome – 26 June 2024
1. Various of Gabriel Natale-Hjorth entering courtroom
2. Various of Finnegan Lee Elder entering courtroom
3. Various of jury
4. Fabio Alonzi, defense attorney for Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, showing CCTV video of the defendants running away from the scene of the crime
5. Screen showing video
5. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Fabio Alonzi, defense attorney for Gabriel Natale-Hjorth:
(Describing the fight between Natale-Jorth and Andrea Varriale, policeman who was with slain officer Cerciello Rega)
"If I have my antagonist in a weaker position, what I do I do? You attack him. No, Natale instead runs way, he runs away."
6. Close of Gabriel Natale-Hjorth
7. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Fabio Alonzi, attorney for Gabriel Natale-Hjorth:
"All the evidence that I have brought to you are leading only to this conclusion: the acquittal of my defendant (Natale-Hjorth). Because I don’t think he can be blamed for responsibilities that he does not have. The young Gabriel must pay for that very stupid attempted extortion of that ill-fated night. It was an ill-fated-night for the way it ended. But he must not pay for what he did not commit."
8. Rosa Maria Esilio, widow of Mario Cerciello Rega, and Andrea Varriale, policeman who was working with Cerciello Rega
9. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Massimo Ferrandino, attorney for Rosa Maria Esilio, widow of Mario Cerciello Rega:
"This new appeal has two pillars: to understand if Elder was aware he was confronting two carabinieri, two law enforcement officers, and if Natale was aware of the presence of a knife. The two capable defense colleagues have approximately reiterated the same reconstruction of the first two trials. We await the verdict with confidence and then we will evaluate how to proceed."
10. Prosecutor Bruno Giangiacomo
11. Various of courtroom and defendants leaving
12. Plaque reading (Italian) “Court of appeal – Rome”
13. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Renato Borzone, defense attorney for Finnegan Lee Elder: “The Cassation Court gave a clear indication: for sure the boy (Finnegan Lee Elder) made a mistake, serious, very serious. Unfortunately a person has lost his life, but the two defendants did not understand that they were in the presence of two officers, two Caribinieri police officers.”
14. Italian and European flags
15. Exteriors of Rome court of appeal
STORYLINE:
Two American men convicted in the slaying of an Italian plainclothes police officer during a botched sting operation were back in court for a retrial on Wednesday after Italy’s highest court threw out their convictions.
Prosecutors have asked the court to find the pair guilty in the July 2019 slaying of Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, with a prison sentence of 23 years and nine months for Lee Elder Finnegan and 23 years for Gabriele Natale-Hjorth.
Teenagers at the time of the slaying, the former schoolmates from the San Francisco Bay area had met up in Rome to spend a few days vacationing.
The fatal confrontation happened after they had arranged to meet a small-time drug dealer, who turned out to have been a police informant, to recover money lost in a bad deal.
Instead, they were confronted by the officers.
Cerciello Riga was stabbed 11 times with a knife brought from the hotel room.
The defense has argued that the defendants were not aware they were facing law enforcement when the attack happened.
The highest court threw out Elder’s conviction and 24-year sentence and asked the appeals court to consider the charge of resisting an officer.
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