over the multiple stabbing death of a Carabinieri police officer while they were on vacation in Rome in 2019.
Cerciello Rega, 35, was given a hero’s funeral in the Naples area’ church where he had been married just a few weeks earlier. The officer was stabbed 11 times, including in vital organs. After their conviction, the Elder’s brother lashed out at Italian officials, calling his sibling’s murder conviction and life sentence in the slaying of an Italian police officer in Rome a “mockery of justice.”
Elder’s lawyers said in a written statement that while eliminating the earlier life sentence “removed one of the iniquitous aspects” of the lower court’s decision, they questioned why the court apparently “insisted on believing at all costs” the “many lies” of Varriale. “Elder doesn’t deserve forgiveness,” Saveriano said in his final argument Thursday. As for the co-defendant, Saveriano noted that Natale-Hjorth’s fingerprints were found by police on a panel of a false ceiling in the American’s hotel room where he hid the knife.