An Italian prosecutor on Saturday asked for life sentences for two American students charged with murdering a police officer in an alleged drug deal gone wrong.
The two Americans, Finnegan Lee Elder,21 and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth,20, have been accused of stabbing Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega to death in Rome in July 2019. Prosecutor Maria Sabina Calabretta told the court in Rome that given the circumstances of the case, the two should receive the maximum sentence permitted under Italian law. «I ask for the full responsibility of both for what concerns all the crimes listed, taken aggravating circumstances in consideration, and evidently considered more serious the murder crime,» she said. The lawyer representing Rosa Maria Rega, the officer’s widow, called the prosecutor’s request «just.
