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Egyptians arrested for helping Danish couple who climbed pyramid and posed naked

Ritzau/The Local
Ritzau/The Local - [email protected]
Egyptians arrested for helping Danish couple who climbed pyramid and posed naked
The Pyramid of Khufu, also known as the Great Pyramid of Giza. File photo: AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty/Ritzau Scanpix

Authorities in Egypt on Thursday arrested a camel owner and a second person for helping two Danish tourists to climb the Great Pyramid at Giza.

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After climbing the pyramid, the pair took sexually-charged photos and a video of themselves and then shared the images online, causing outrage in the Middle Eastern country.

According to the Egyptian interior ministry, the second of the two arrested people, a woman, established contact between the Danish couple and the camel owner, who illegally transported them to the pyramid on the evening of November 29th for the price of 4,000 Egyptian pounds, around 1,500 kroner (200 euros).

The camel owner and woman have confessed to their involvement and await trial, news agency AFP reports. Egyptian law forbids climbing on the ancient monuments at Giza.

23-year-old Dane Andreas Hvid posted on YouTube a video of the couple climbing the pyramid. The video ends with the young woman, whose face is blurred out, removing her top as she stands atop the 146.7 metre-tall archaeological wonder. It has been viewed over 4.8 million times at the time of writing.

“Climbing an ancient monument like the pyramids is not allowed. If you are told not to touch or take pictures in a museum in Europe you will respect the law,” one commenter on the social media site wrote in response to the video.

“Just imagine if an immigrant or a refugee had sex in the Amalienborg yard or Copenhagen Opera House, filmed it and post it! What would the reaction be?”, another comment reads.

Several newspapers in Egypt have reported on the video. According to Danish media TV2, Egyptian antiquities minister Khaled al-Anany has placed the case in the hands of the country’s prosecution authority.

Hvid told Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet that he had long held an ambition to climb to the top of the pyramid.

Potential charges by Egypt against the two Danes, who are no longer in the country, are not currently clear.

“I will stay out of Egypt from now on, as I probably risk being sentenced if I go back,” Hvid told Ekstra Bladet.

READ ALSO: Danish archaeologists find 14,000 year-old bread in Jordan

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