“I am shocked and torn by pain because I was convicted for a fact that I did not commit.” Thus Gabriel Natale Hjorth in a statement to Adnkronos through his defenders, lawyers Fabio Alonzi and Francesco Petrelli, following the sentence of conviction to life imprisonment for the murder of the deputy police sergeant Mario Cerciello Rega killed in Rome on July 26, 2019. Together with Hjorth, the other young American Finnegan Lee Elder was also sentenced to the same sentence. I could believe what I was hearing and the terrible mistake that was being made. At that moment – continues Hjorth – I just wanted to cry out my innocence “.