AN IRISH tourist has pleaded guilty to carving his name into a wall at the former Auschwitz concentration camp.

The 32-year-old man was arrested on Sunday after security guards at the former Nazi extermination camp saw him engrave his name in one of the bunkhouses with a coin.

He was brought to Oswiecim police station, where he was questioned in relation to the crime of damaging a building of special cultural interest.

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A spokeswoman said the Irish tourist was later brought to the district prosecutor and charged with the offence.

He pleaded guilty to the charge and has since been released, with a punishment expected to be set over the coming weeks.

The maximum sentence for damaging a culturally significant building is up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

The police spokeswoman said: “Police in Oswiecim were informed by the museum guard of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau of the capturing of an Irish national (32), suspected of the inscribing by a coin his name on one of the bunkhouse in Brzezinka.

“By his act, he committed a crime of damaging the building of special cultural interest, that’s why he was arrested and brought to the police station in Oswiecim.”

In 2016, two Portuguese teenagers received two year suspended sentences after carving their names in antique bricks at the site.

More than 1.1 million people were killed at the Auschwitz II–Birkenau camp between 1940 and 1945.

Herald