Rome (AFP) – Two US tourists convicted of the stabbing death of an Italian police officer in 2019 began their appeal Thursday, hoping to reduce life sentences the defence has characterised as excessive. Finnegan Elder, 22, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, were convicted in May 2021 by a Rome court for the death of police officer Mario Cerciello Rega during a late-night encounter in July 2019 while the two were on summer holiday. Elder admitted to stabbing Cerciello with an 11-inch camping knife on a dark Rome street in a crime that horrified Italy and led to an outpouring of public grief for th…