New Delhi: Authorities in Venice threw a woman tourist out and banned her from the city for 48 hours after she was caught posing topless on a war memorial for fallen Italian heroes, media reports said.
The incident occurred last Friday when the woman, 30, from the Czech Republic went for a swim in the lagoon after dumping her belongings on a monument by the water body that pays homage to Italy's war heroes. She then lay down next to the statue of a murdered female partisan and posed topless for photos, the reports said.
She was fined $513 and banned from Venice for 48 hours.
According to a CNN report, local resident Mario Nason was out walking with his son when he saw the woman with her two companions on the monument.
The monument is dedicated to the women who died fighting for freedom under fascism. It has a murdered partisan’s bronze statue, half in the water and half on a bronze-and-concrete platform. It is said to be Italy’s one of few statues dedicated to women.
"I thought she must be crazy, thinking she could swim on a freezing day. But then I saw she was trying to get out of the water by climbing onto the statue, wearing just her bikini bottoms,” Nason told CNN, adding that he then saw her boyfriend and another woman taking photos of her.
The police arrested the woman and fined her 350 Euros for “antisocial behavior”, and handed a 48-hour ban from the city that comes with a separate fine of 100 Euros.
A police spokesperson, who didn’t name the woman, told CNN that she was lying on the monument, imitating the dead partisan, so her companions could take her photo along with the statue.
"I imagine she apologized," he added.