On Friday the Court of Appeal of Rome acquitted with the formula “because the fact does not constitute a crime” Fabio Manganaro, the carabiniere who in July 2019 blindfolded Gabriel Natale Hjorth, the young American arrested together with his friend Finnegan Lee Elder for the murder of Carabinieri deputy brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega.
In February 2023, Manganaro was sentenced at first instance to two months in prison: the judge considered that blindfolding a suspected person (Hjorth) was an “absolute anomaly”. The policeman explained that he had done it to prevent the young man from recognizing some of his colleagues. Last November, Silvio Pellegrini, the carabiniere who had taken the photo of Hjorth blindfolded in the barracks and circulated it, was also sentenced at first instance to one year and two months in prison.
The trial for the creation and dissemination of Hjorth’s photo is separate from the main trial on the murder of Cerciello Rega, at the end of which in 2021 the two Americans were sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance, sentences later modified on appeal and annulled by the Supreme Court, which in March 2023 ordered a new trial.
