Testifying in court docket final 12 months, Mr. Elder stated that he had panicked after Brigadier Cerciello Rega, who was a lot larger than him, tackled him to the bottom, and that he feared the officer would kill him.
In his testimony, Officer Varriale stated that he and his accomplice had clearly recognized themselves as carabinieri, or navy cops, after they approached the Individuals. Throughout a listening to for the enchantment final month, Officer Varriale’s lawyer, Roberto Borgogno, dismissed the model of occasions given by the 2 Individuals as “a movie, fiction.”
The protection challenged the officer’s account of the night, arguing that he had lied to cowl critical missteps within the operation, together with a failure to hold his service weapon with him that evening.
Mr. Elder and Mr. Natale Hjorth have been convicted in Could of murder, tried extortion, resisting a public official and carrying a weapon with out simply trigger. The court docket handed down Italy’s harshest sentence, including in its written rationalization of the ruling that the 2 males had by no means proven remorse for his or her actions.
Addressing the court docket this month, considered one of Mr. Elder’s legal professionals, Renato Borzone, stated that life in jail, for somebody so younger, was “tantamount to a dying sentence.”
The protection had rejected the prosecution’s allegations of intentional felony conduct, arguing that the tragic epilogue of the night stemmed from the defendants’ youth and inexperience; their upbringing in the USA, the place carrying weapons is way more frequent; and their certainty that the 2 plainclothes cops have been thugs, intent on hurting them.
Mr. Elder has been identified as having a borderline character dysfunction, Mr. Borzone stated this week, arguing that the ferocity of his response might be attributed to “the response of somebody who’s terrorized.”