The two suspects, Finnegan Elder, 19, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 18, have been charged with aggravated homicide and attempted extortion following the murder of officer Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, who suffered multiple stab wounds in last Friday’s attack.
The two teenagers broke down in tears during their interrogation, police said on Tuesday.
Elder has confessed to stabbing Cerciello Rega with a US Marine partially-serrated, close-quarters combat knife, police said, as they gave a detailed account of what happened on the night of the attack.
Natale-Hjorth held Cerciello Rega’s partner, Andrea Varriale, down during the attack in Rome’s upmarket Prati neighbourhood, they said.
Police believe both suspects had been drinking shots and beer, while Elder had also taken prescription drugs.
A photo taken of Natale-Hjorth blindfolded and handcuffed while under interrogation sparked widespread criticism, with the head of Italy’s lawyer’s union saying it might quash the questioning.
“The suspects were identified and interrogated by the magistrates with respect of the law,” Rome’s acting prosecutor, Michele Prestipino, said at a press conference.
“The interrogations were conducted with all the guarantees of the defense, in the presence of the defense lawyers, of interpreters, and after the reading of all the notifications envisioned by law.”
Prestipino said the interrogations were also recorded.
Cerciello Rega and Varriale had been tasked with intercepting the American tourists after an intermediary on a drug deal reported them to the police for stealing his bag after they were sold aspirin instead of cocaine.
The officers were in plain clothes, but told the suspects that they were police.
But the teens, who were wearing hooded sweatshirts, claim they thought the men were dangerous drug dealers.
Cerciello Rega, who had recently returned to work from his honeymoon, had been carrying handcuffs, but not his gun, which he had left in the barracks after bringing colleagues ice cream earlier in the evening.
Varriale was armed, but “there was no time to react, the suspects fled immediately.”
Rather than chase the teens – who made their escape to a hotel just 80 metres away – Varriale tried in vain to save his partner’s life.
Elder and Natale-Hjorth – who has Italian relatives and reportedly holds dual US-Italian citizenship – were being held in Rome’s Regina Coeli prison, and have been briefly visited by a US government official.
A funeral for Cerciello Rega was held on Monday in his hometown of Somma Vesuviana, in the same church where he and his wife were married six weeks earlier.
Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, called the policeman’s death a “deep wound for the State”.
