ROME (AP) — Police hunted for a suspected thief who fatally knifed a Carabinieri officer in a quiet Rome neighborhood early Friday, and prosecutors were questioning several people in case, including two young American tourists who were lodging in a nearby hotel.
Italy's paramilitary Carabinieri police corps said Mario Cerciello Rega was stabbed eight times by a man who allegedly was demanding a 100-euro ($112) ransom to return a bag with a cellphone that had been snatched from its owner elsewhere in Rome. Struck in the heart and the back, the officer died shortly after in a hospital, Italian media said.
Cerciello Rega and a partner were working in plainclothes when they confronted two suspects about the theft after the bag's owner contacted police for help when the alleged thieves sought a rendezvous to receive the ransom. The officers went to the site of the arranged meeting on a street in Prati, a district near Italy's supreme court building.
Two Americans staying at a nearby upscale hotel were being questioned Friday evening at a Carabinieri station by prosecutors, Carabinieri Lt. Col. Orazio Ianniello said. He denied reports that the two men, about 20 years old, had been detained. He said he didn't know if they were being questioned about the theft or about the slaying.
The identities of the Americans, or their hometowns, were not being released, Ianniello said.
Other persons were also questioned in the case, police said.
Cerciello Rega's station commander, Sandro Ottaviani, said the 35-year-old officer had married his longtime sweetheart about five weeks ago and returned from his honeymoon just a few days ago.
Colleagues and charities praised Cerciello Rega for his generosity. He sometimes accompanied ailing people to a religious shrine in the town of Loreto, Ottaviani said.
Others recalled that the Carabinieri officer would frequently check on the homeless living in Rome's main train station, helping dish out hot meals to the hungry, distributing clothes and sometimes even buying lunch for them out of his own pocket.