Italy: Two German tourists suspected of defacing exterior columns of Vasari Corridor

The Carabinieri police have suspected two German tourists of spraying graffiti on exterior columns of the Vasari Corridor. According to a report by the news agency Associated Press on Wednesday (August 24), the director of Florence’s Uffizi Galleries called for stiff penalties against those who defaced the columns. The two German tourists, who were vacationing in Florence, scrawled the name of a German soccer club on the columns.

The report said that an investigation was launched, adding no one was reported detained. In a statement, Italy's Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said that actions like these must not remain unpunished. “Now, let justice run its course,” Sangiuliano added.

The minister earlier said that the vandals needed to understand "that even a small scratch will be prosecuted from now on.”

'A premeditated act'

The Italian police examined the video to identify those responsible for the graffiti, which appeared overnight on the Arno River-facing side of the nearly kilometre-long (half-mile-long) corridor.

“Clearly this is not a drunken whim, but a premeditated act,’’ Uffizi director Eike Schmidt said and called for harsh sanctions against those responsible, saying that in the United States, such cases could bring a prison term of five years.

“Enough with symbolic punishments and imaginative extenuating circumstances. We need the hard fist of the law,’’ Schmidt added.

As per Italian law, someone convicted of “aggravated damage,” which could apply to a vandalism case, risks a prison term as high as three years.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE