Tourist on 10-Day U.K. Tour Charged After Scaling Buckingham Palace Wall
SOUVENIR HUNTING?
Hollie Adams/Reuters
A 25-year-old tourist was in court Monday after being caught in the Royal Mews area of Buckingham Palace on Sept. 16, having scaled a wall to break in. Awad Mustafa, of no fixed abode, was reportedly carrying passports from Ecuador and Spain and was on a 10-day U.K. tour, with plans to travel to Spain on Sept. 17. Police discovered him in the Mews, which houses the king’s Gold State Coach, after responding to a report of a person climbing the palace wall. Westminster Magistrates’ Court also heard Monday that a car was found broken into but that nothing had been stolen. “The defendant climbed the wall, found it was impossible to climb back out, and had suffered injuries when scaling the wall,” prosecutor Rhianne Neil said. “He denies breaking into the car.” Mustafa has been charged with attempted theft from a motor vehicle and trespass on a protected site.