A tourist has been sentenced to 10 months in prison and a fine after she was arrested on 16 September at the airport of Antalya – a popular tourist destination on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast – when three ancient stones were found in her luggage wrapped within her clothes and some bags. After being examined by experts from the Antalya Archaeological Museum, it was determined that the stones belonged to Roman remains.
A court initially ordered the woman and her partner, both Belgian nationals, to be released under judicial supervision with a ban on leaving the country. The prosecution then charged the woman – in whose luggage the stones were found – with “violation of the law on the protection of cultural and natural heritage” and asked for a 12-year prison sentence and a fine of 500,000 liras (about 16,000 euros) for the theft of the Roman stones, as stipulated by law in such cases. The woman was, however, allowed to return to her country in October, after the court order was lifted.
Finally, at the last session of the trial on 30 November, the defendant received a 10-month prison sentence for possession of historical artefacts after taking into account as mitigating factors her repentance, a prison sentence which under Turkish law she will not have to serve and will be suspended, unless she commits the same offense within the next five years.
The incident is a reminder for those who travel to Turkey of the danger involved in the habit of some tourists of taking ‘souvenirs’, especially stones from historical sites they visit: a practice that damages the country’s historical and cultural heritage, relatively unpunished in other countries but which in Turkey is severely prosecuted by laws against the plundering of heritage, even – as has happened on this occasion – with prison sentences, and which in many occasions has put a foreign tourist into trouble.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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