By Marco Carta
ROME (Reuters) -&nbsp;Italy's&nbsp;highest&nbsp;court&nbsp;late on Wednesday ordered two American&nbsp;tourists&nbsp;to stand a&nbsp;new&nbsp;trial&nbsp;for the 2019 killing of a policeman in central Rome following a botched attempt to buy drugs, but upheld a&nbsp;murder&nbsp;sentence for one of them.
Last year an appeals&nbsp;court&nbsp;had convicted Finnegan Lee Elder, who was 19 at the time, to 24 years in jail for stabbing Mario Cerciello Rega to death in Rome, while his friend, Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was handed a 22-year term.
The Rome-based&nbsp;Court&nbsp;of Cassation said Elder was guilty of&nbsp;murder, but ordered a&nbsp;new&nbsp;trial&nbsp;because some related allegations were not sufficiently corroborated.
Cerciello Rega, 35, was not armed at the time and was stabbed 11 times by Elder with an 18-cm (7-inch) blade that he had brought with him from the United States, police said.
The&nbsp;court&nbsp;said Natale-Hjorth should stand&nbsp;trial&nbsp;again because there was not enough evidence of his complicity in the killing. He did not handle the&nbsp;murder&nbsp;weapon during the attack but was tussling with the second police officer, Andrea Varriale.
The&nbsp;Court, which only rules on whether the laws have been correctly applied and not on the merits of a case, said there was not enough evidence the two&nbsp;tourists&nbsp;were aware they had police in front of them, something they both deny.
"From the first minute we examined the&nbsp;court&nbsp;papers, we realised that Elder had absolutely no idea that he was facing two police officials. That intervention was anomalous. This decision could have a great influence on the penalty," said Elder's lawyer Renato Borzone.
The two Americans, who both come from California, were in Italy on holiday and tried to buy drugs&nbsp;from a local dealer in a Rome tourist hotspot. They have said they were cheated, but managed to grab a bag off an intermediary as he tried to escape.
They subsequently agreed to meet the dealer again to get their money back in exchange for the bag, but instead the two policemen showed up in plain clothes.
Elder has admitted killing Cerciello Rega, but both he and Natale-Hjorth said they had acted in self-defence because they thought the two policemen were thugs&nbsp;out to get them.
"We are very satisfied with the outcome. We finally have someone who has heard our reasons. Now a&nbsp;new&nbsp;page in the&nbsp;trial&nbsp;is opened," said Natale-Hjorth's lawyer Fabio Alonzi.
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(Reporting by Marco Carta; writing by Angelo Amante; Editing by Sonali Paul)

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Italy's highest court orders new trial for U.S. tourists over policeman's murder