From The Associated PressSANTIAGO, Chile - A Finnish tourist who chipped an earlobe off an ancient Moai on Easter Island is being allowed to go home after paying a US$17,000 fine and agreeing not to return for three years, police said Tuesday.
Marko Kulju, 26, deposited the money into a bank account overseen by the court that handled his case, the Easter Island prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
At prosecutors’ request, Kulju also wrote a public apology for damaging the figure, one of 400 statues carved out of volcanic rock between 400 and 1,000 years ago to represent deceased ancestors. The statues are protected by Chilean law.
Kulju was taken into custody after being caught by a local Rapanui woman two weeks ago trying to steal a piece of the Moai’s ear as a souvenir. The woman reported him to police on the South Pacific island.Kulju called his attempted theft “the worst mistake of my life,” in comments published by the Santiago daily newspaper La Tercera in its online edition Tuesday.
It was not clear exactly when he planned to leave the island, a Chilean territory.
2 comments:
Luckily, the Americans are OnLine and alert. So in the Magnificent A-O-L only, 314,000 votes on the judgment in a day, with 3200 comments. (At the same time when China was raiding over Tibet. No poll on that one.)
7 years in a South American prison. Ear off from the guy (says the Mayor). After this volume of hypocricy and publicity, even one day could kill a man in a South American prison.
And as I read the actual story behind the News from Congoo to Australia, it seems to me that he's not proven to break it by purpose. It was an accident, not a theft or vandalism.
But you don't figure that out by reading these genious' news services. One lady shouted that "A tattood guy came, ripped off the ear, stole it and ran!" And our brilliant investigative journalists recycle the hearsay to about 500 million people.
Another viewpoint on the hang-up party of this countryman of mine:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Easter-island-broken-ear-mob-lynch.htm
Pauli Ojala
Finland
Yes. Of course!
Post a Comment