Italy's highest court orders new trial for U.S. tourists over policeman's murder

FILE PHOTO: U.S. citizens Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, accused of killing Carabinieri military police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, attend to a hearing of their trial, in Rome, Italy May 5, 2021. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's highest court late on Wednesday ordered two American tourists to stand a new trial for the 2019 killing of a policeman in central Rome following a botched attempt to buy drugs, but upheld a murder sentence for one of them.

Last year an appeals court had convicted Finnegan Lee Elder, who was 19 at the time, to 24 years in jail for stabbing Mario Cerciello Rega to death in Rome, while his friend, Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was handed a 22-year term.