RIIKASSA putkaan.... LUE

'English Pig' who urinated on fountain is jailed
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 A British tourist was sentenced to five days in custody for urinating on one of Latvia's most revered public monuments.

Authorities in the Baltic state are becoming increasingly angry about foreign visitors - many believed to be members of stag parties - who relieve themselves on the Freedom Monument in the capital Riga.

Latvian interior minister Mareks Seglins described the offenders as "those English pigs", according to reports.


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The latest alleged culprit, a 34-year-old London man, is the first person to be locked up rather than fined for urinating on the fountain, the Baltic Times reported.

The man pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming he was playing around on the monument's stairs yesterday when his trousers accidentally fell down, the paper said.

In recent months there have been a series of incidents where drunken foreign visitors were arrested for behaving disrespectfully on the Freedom Monument.

Last year a kilt-wearing 23-year-old Scottish man was detained after climbing onto the landmark and exposing himself.

And a New Zealander allegedly posed for photographs on the monument in a skimpy thong swimsuit like that worn by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen to promote the film Borat, the Baltic Times reported.

The Freedom Monument - or Brivibas Piemineklis - was completed in 1935 and is a treasured symbol of Latvia's independence.

The British Embassy in Riga includes this warning for travellers on its website: "Do not urinate in public - always use a toilet. It is not worth going to jail or paying an expensive fine."

Neither the embassy nor the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was able to comment.