Spanish tourists arrested for photographing Buckingham Palace

Spanish tourists arrested for photographing Buckingham Palace
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By m.p. - May 20, 2009 - 3:49 PM
The two friends were later released after their arrest on a terrorism charge

A view of Buckingham Palace taken in 2006. Photo - Wikimedia

Two Spaniards are considering filing a complaint after their arrest last weekend for taking photos of the wall outside Buckingham Palace. The two friends from Madrid were in London for a weekend break and told La Vanguardia newspaper how 10 or police officers suddenly swooped on them as they were photographing the wall which surrounds the palace. As one of the tourists, A.R.M., said to the paper, the wall caught his interest because it seemed as if it should be surrounding a concentration camp rather than a palace.

They two say they were surrounded by the officers and searched, and told that photographs of the wall were not permitted for reasons of security. They were then taken into custody on a terrorism charge, La Vanguardia reports this Wednesday.

The tourists say they were in custody for an hour while officers checked through the 500 photos they’d taken on their trip, and cross-referenced their details on an international terrorism database. No charges were made and none of their photographs were deleted.

Police are understood to have apologised to the two Spaniards as well as to the Spanish Embassy in London. La Vanguardia quotes a source saying, ‘From time to time, if they see people taking photographs in a manner which does not seem to be related to tourism, police can stop them for questioning.’

The Guardian reports a similar incident with an Austrian tourist and his teenage son last month, when they were made by police to delete all the transport-related photographs they had taken of the city.

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