Finnish Tourist Chips An Earlobe Off Ancient Easter Island Statue

An ear for an ear? The angry mayor of Easter Island said Thursday he wished the Finnish tourist accused of chipping an earlobe off an ancient Maoi could have his ear clipped off as “justice” for damaging one of the world-famous statues.

[MTI] Finnish tourist Marko Kulju, 26, issued a public apology through a Chilean newspaper on Thursday, saying he regretted the incident that has caused an uproar on the South Pacific island, a Chilean territory. It was not clear whether Mayor Pedro Edmunds Paoa had read the published apology. “If an ear is cut off, then an ear gets cut,” Edmunds Paoa told Cooperative radio. “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth: That would be my form of justice.” Authorities accused Kulju of breaking the ear off a Maoi on Sunday and trying to take a piece of it as a souvenir. The statue is one of 400 carved out of volcanic rock representing ancestors of island residents.