2023-09-20 15:06:10
A tourist has been arrested in Greece for stealing two marble fragments from the Acropolis in Athens. The man, a 36-year-old Romanian citizen, was arrested by the police last Tuesday thanks to the intervention of the monument’s heritage guards.
According to what a spokesperson for the Greek Ministry of Culture told ABC, the tourist picked up some fragments of marble that were on the ground in the Propylaea area.
The Acropolis heritage guards saw how the detainee crouched down, opened a bag, and introduced several pieces of marble.
“I didn’t know it was a crime”
The police detained the tourist at the scene, confiscated the fragments of the Parthenon as evidence, and brought the arrested person before the prosecutor.
According to local media, the detainee based his defense on the lack of knowledge that collecting marble remains was a crime and that he had not caused damage to the monument because the fragments were loose.
Now he faces a crime against property, with a sentence of two years in prison and a large financial fine.
Daily visitor limit
Since the beginning of this month, the Greek Ministry of Culture has implemented measures that limit the number of people who can access the monument to a maximum of 20,000 in one day. In addition, it has also established a series of time slots to avoid crowds at the Acropolis. With this decision, the Mitsotakis Executive intends to control the flow of visitors and thereby favor the conservation and protection of the monument.
The heritage guards of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens had requested on multiple occasions the reduction of visitors, which in summer exceeded the 23,000 tourists dailybecause “it makes our work to protect the monument difficult,” as María Duru, spokesperson for the Helena Association of Heritage Guards, explained to this newspaper.
«There are days when the crowds are so large, that It is impossible for us to control acts of vandalism or any other type of situation that could endanger both heritage assets and the tourists who visit the archaeological site,” he adds.
The Acropolis of Athens, symbol of Western Civilization and Democracy, is the most visited monument in the country.
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