U.S. citizens have their guilty verdict for killing Italian police confirmed by Italy's judiciary.

An Italian appeals court reaffirmed the convictions of two U.S. men, Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriele Natale-Hjorth, for the 2019 death of an Italian police officer during a compromised operation but reduced their penalties. The appellate decision followed Italy's highest court dismissing earlier rulings against them.

Finnegan was sentenced to serve 15 years and two months, while Natale-Hjorth received 11 years in prison. Mario Cerciello Rega, the deceased carabinieri vice-brigadier, had been murdered during an operation gone awry in July of that year.

Elder, from San Francisco Bay area origins and a former schoolmate of Natale-Hjorth's who was around 13 at the time of Rega's death, met him in Rome for leisure purposes. They intended to reclaim lost funds by engaging with an individual posing as a drug supplier but found themselves face-to-face with law enforcement instead.

The court had initially called on a new hearing after the supreme judiciary deemed that it was not conclusively proved whether Elder and Natale-Hjorth, who lacked proficient Italian language skills at the time of their meeting in Rome, understood they were interacting with Italian police officers.

Upon reevaluation by the appeals court, Finnegan's earlier 24-year sentence was altered to a lesser term and his case now includes consideration for resisting arrest charges. Natale-Hjorth faced potential complicity in murder charges instead of her original conviction.

Rome mourned the loss of Cerciello Rega, aged 35, who had been hailed as a national hero following his death at the hands of Elder and Natale-Hjorth—accused of wielding a knife that belonged to Finnegan during their encounter.

The pair were charged under Italian law for murder due to being alleged accomplices, though they insisted upon having paid cash in exchange for unprovided narcotics following an attempted transaction gone wrong after obtaining stolen property and a mobile phone from the area around Trastevere in Rome's nightlife district.