Retrial ordered for former Marin County students in Italian officer’s killing

Italy’s highest court on Wednesday ordered the retrial of two former Marin County classmates who are serving time for the killing of an Italian police officer in Rome in July 2019, and their case will now go to a new appeals court in Rome.

The president of the five-judge high court, Monica Boni, read the verdict — a terse legal statement — in a courtroom late Wednesday night.

The court rules on questions of procedure and the correct application of laws, not on the merits of a case or the finding of guilt or innocence. It annulled parts of the sentences that had been handed down by lower courts and sent the case back to a court of appeals to reconsider.

The Americans, Finnegan Elder, 23, and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, 22, were sentenced to life in prison in 2021, Italy’s harshest punishment, for the killing of the officer, Deputy Brig. Mario Cerciello Rega of the carabinieri, or Italian military police.

The two men attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, and were on summer vacation when they decided to meet up in Rome.

Their sentences were reduced on appeal in 2022. Elder, who stabbed the officer to death during a brief altercation, was sentenced to 24 years in prison, while Natale Hjorth, who is believed to have orchestrated the events that led to the death, is serving a 22-year term.

Neither defendant was in the courtroom for the verdict, which was met with silence. Apart from journalists, most of those in attendance were friends and family members of the slain carabiniere. His widow, Maria Rosa Esilio, expressed no emotion after the verdict was read.

The court will provide a detailed reasoning for its decision in coming weeks, issuing a directive to the court of appeals to reconsider certain aspects of the case.

In the case of Natale Hjorth, the appeals court will review whether he had been an accessory to the killing. For Elder, the appeals court will review the aggravating circumstances, which in this case relate to the fact that the victim was a police officer.

“The court acknowledged what we’ve been saying from the beginning, that there were a series of questions about whether or not he knew that Cerciello Rega was a carabiniere,” said Roberto Capra, one of Elder’s defense lawyers. “Now that will have to be clarified in a new trial.”