Finnegan Lee Elder

An Italian appeals court on Thursday reduced the sentences of two young Bay Area men serving life terms over the multiple stabbing death of a Carabinieri police officer while they were on vacation in Rome in 2019.

The defense for two young men from the Bay Area, convicted last year in Rome of murdering an Italian policeman and given life sentences, pleaded for leniency at their appeals trial Thursday.

Several members of Italy’s Carabinieri paramilitary police force called for the deaths or beatings of two Bay Area teenagers who were arrested in the hours after an officer’s slaying, Italian media reported Wednesday.