• Latin America: Peru deportes six tourists for defecating and causing damage in Machu Picchu
  • Guide. Everything you need to know about Machu Picchu
  • Judicial dispute. Who does Machu Picchu belong to?

A Peruvian court sentenced an Argentine tourist who damaged the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu to three years and four months in prison, but will serve his sentence, the Judiciary said Tuesday.

Nahuel Gómez, 28, pleaded guilty in an abbreviated trial and will be able to return to his country once he pays a fine of $ 1,860 for damages caused to Peru's main archaeological and tourist attraction.

Five other foreign tourists detained with Gomez on January 12 - one French, one Argentine, one Chilean and two Brazilians - were deported on Thursday and are banned from entering Peru for 15 years.

"The Unipersonal Criminal Court of Machu Picchu sentenced the Argentine Nahuel Gómez to three years and four months suspended from prison, accused of the crime of affecting the cultural heritage of the Nation in its modality of destruction of pre-Hispanic goods," said Judge Melody You contreras in his sentence.

According to Peruvian law, when the sentence is less than four years, the convicted person does not go to prison if he has no previous record, but if he fails to comply with the conditions set by the court, he is imprisoned.

Gomez, who appeared before the judge with shaved hair and without the beard he wore when he was arrested, accepted the sentence. The abbreviated trial was held on Friday in the town of Machu Picchu, near the Inca citadel, but the ruling was announced Tuesday by the judiciary.

The Argentine, who presented himself as a "trade traveler", will be expelled from the country once he pays the fine and is expected to also be banned from returning to Peru for 15 years.

Once in Argentina Gómez must comply with certain rules of conduct and attend monthly to the Peruvian consulate in the northern city of Salta for two years to report their activities.

"If I agree with the sentence and the rules of conduct, " Gomez said at the hearing, according to a video from the judiciary.

The six tourists were arrested in a restricted area of ​​the citadel, which they entered without paying admission. Gomez admitted that he had been the one who extracted a stone that when falling from a six-meter wall caused a "cleft in the floor" of the famous Temple of the Sun, dedicated to the greatest deity of the Incas. The Culture Department of Cuzco confirmed the fall of a stone and the discovery of feces in the protected area.

"The damage caused is invaluable. The integrity of Machu Picchu has been broken," lamented the head of that archaeological park, José Bastante.

Machu Picchu is on top of a 2,400m mountain, about 80 km northwest of Cusco, the ancient Inca capital, in southeastern Peru.

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