Italian police: American teen illegally blindfolded
ROME— An American teenager was illegally blindfolded before he was interrogated as a suspect in the slaying of a newlywed police officer in Rome, an Italian police commander said Sunday after a photo emerged showing the young tourist restrained with handcuffs and with his head bowed.
Gabriel Christian Natale-hjorth, 18, was blindfolded “for a very few minutes, four or five” on Friday just before he was taken to the interrogation in a police station about the fatal stabbing, Rome Provincial Cmdr. Francesco Gargaro told The Associated Press.
Natale-hjorth and another suspect from California, Finnegan Lee Elder, 19, remained jailed while Italians lined up outside a chapel to pay respects to Deputy Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega. The officer, 35, recently had returned to duty on the Carabinieri paramilitary police force after a honeymoon.
The officer was attacked with a knife on a street close to the teens’ upscale hotel in Rome. An autopsy showed he had been stabbed 11 times.
“Whoever killed him is an animal,” said the mayor of the officer’s hometown, Somma Vesuviana. Mayor Salvatore Di Sarno spoke after leaving a wake for the officer in a chapel close to the police station in Rome where he had worked for years.
The coroner concluded that the policeman bled to death, according to Italian news reports.
Hundreds of Romans lined up in silence to file past the officer’s coffin. Among the mourners were his widowed bride, Rosa Maria Esilio, and Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte.
Cerciello was popular for greeting residents of the historic Rome neighborhood. He spent off-duty hours as a volunteer dishing out hot meals to the homeless and accompanied ailing faithful to religious shrines.