A couple from Antwerp has been arrested in Turkey after they tried to take some stones that they had picked up during their holiday there back with them to Belgium. Kim and Warre (photo above) unsuspectingly put the three stones into their suitcase. However, what they didn’t know is that doing this was illegal and once at the airport they were arrested on suspicion of smuggling archaeological artefacts.
Antwerp
Couple from Antwerp arrested in Turkey "smuggling of archaeological artefacts"
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Their ordeal began last Saturday just before they were about to fly back home. Warre told VRT Radio 2 Antwerp that "We were singled out at the airport checkpoint. A woman came up to us and asked if we had salt or minerals with us. I said no but said that there were a number of stones in our suitcase. We often take them with us as decoration for my aquarium."
Before they knew it, Kim and Warre were taken to a police station at the airport. "We had to sit there for a long time. They asked us questions, but we didn't understand much of it. Eventually we were transferred from the airport to another police station, where we also were sat for a long time."
"The next day my girlfriend appeared before a magistrate. I don't know why Kim had to appear and not me or both of us, but she is no longer allowed to leave the country. She has been charged with smuggling three archaeological stones."
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Kim and Warre are both still in Turkey. "One of the stones was the size of my hand, sand-colored with two flowers carved into it. We found it in an alley full of rubbish. The two other stones were like pieces of marble with a sparkle in them, we found them on the beach."
"We never thought that the stones belonged to a museum, as they now claim. In fact, we have never visited a museum. We flew to Antalya, but we have not actually visited the city. It not like we have taken a piece of the temple, these are just small stones."
However, small or not taking the stones from Turkey is forbidden. The Foreign Ministry website explicitly warns against this. "It is strictly prohibited to export antiquities, minerals or objects found on site (stones for example), even if they do not appear to have any cultural-historical value”.