Italian court reduces sentences for U.S. tourists over policeman murder

FILE PHOTO: U.S. citizen Finnegan Lee Elder, reacts after being found guilty, together with U.S. citizen Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, of the murder of the Italian Carabinieri paramilitary police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, at the courthouse in Rome, Italy, May 5, 2021. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian appeals court reduced on Thursday the prison terms imposed on two American tourists who were originally given life sentences for the 2019 murder of a policeman in a case that shook Italy.

The court ruled that Finnegan Lee Elder, who was 19 at the time, should serve 24 years in jail for having stabbed Mario Cerciello Rega to death in central Rome.