Rome’s famous Colosseum has once again been defaced by foreign tourists. A crime punishable by a sentence of up to five years in prison.
Tough time for the Colosseum. Two new tourists have been caught defacing the walls of Rome’s most famous monument, shortly after a similar case caused a scandal in Italy.
On Friday, a 17-year-old Swiss girl on vacation with her family was the subject of a cultural property complaint after she was filmed carving her initial (“N”) on the amphitheater, the agency reported. italian press ANSA. It is a tourist guide who immortalized the scene, widely relayed on social networks.
The next day, a German student, also aged 17, was arrested by the Italian carabinieri for having in turn defaced the monument. He was “sanctioned administratively”, indicates the Ansa agency, without specifying the height of the sanction.
15,000 euro fine
These two incidents come shortly after another Roman heritage defacement scandal. At the end of June, Ivan Dimitrov, a 27-year-old Bulgarian sports coach living in the United Kingdom, had outraged Italy by engraving his name and that of his companion on the Colosseum.
In the sights of justice, he asked “forgiveness” and argued that he “did not know it was an old monument”. According to Ansa, the Rome public prosecutor’s office could soon prosecute him.
The Italian penal code punishes up to five years in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros for the degradation of “cultural property”.
Source: BFM TV
