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A TOURIST has returned home to Valencia after a 40-day ordeal in a Turkish jail. Gines, who had travelled to Turkey with his wife Miguela after winning the holiday in a competition, decided to do some souvenir shopping in Antalya. He purchased a piece of marble from a market stall for 10 euros. “It was not a whole piece of anything, nor a sculpture, it was a broken fragment that had a couple of engravings”, he said.
By Samantha KettValencia tourist imprisoned after inadvertently buying antique stone from a market
A TOURIST has returned home to Valencia after a 40-day ordeal in a Turkish jail. Gines, who had travelled to Turkey with his wife Miguela after winning the holiday in a competition, decided to do some souvenir shopping in Antalya. He purchased a piece of marble from a market stall for 10 euros. “It was not a whole piece of anything, nor a sculpture, it was a broken fragment that had a couple of engravings”, he said.
At the airport, the scanner flagged up the stone in the suitcase and authorities searched the couple’s baggage. They were informed it was an prisonable offence to take items of more than 100 years of age out of the country; border police said they would need to call an expert to verify the age of the stone.
Gines remained in the airport, his wife caught the plane home. It was confirmed by an antiques specialist that the stone was around 1,800 years old and of great historical value. Gines had a preliminary court hearing on May 1, but the judge decided he should stay in prison pending a ‘more complete trial’. This took place in the second week in June, until which time Gines was kept in a dirty cell with limited sanitation.
Revealing that he lost 10 kilos (22lbs) in weight during his time behind bars, Gines says he was only permitted to speak to his family on two occasions.“I was well treated at every moment”, the holidaymaker admitted, “both by the prison guards and the other inmates, who helped me”.He was released after the full trial with no charges and returned to Valencia a fortnight ago.Gines warns travellers to “be careful when buying abroad – find out more before leaving Spain.”He says this occurs “more often than you would think”, and that his lawyer has already defended over 20 similar cases.
