As Australia struggles, like so many other nations, to contain the Coronavirus pandemic, a bizarre case of quarantine violation came to light in Perth, Australia. Yusuf Karakaya, 31, was ordered to be in quarantine for 14 days after he returned from Sydney last month. The place chosen for him to spend this period was a hotel.
This wasn't the original choice of Karakaya as he proposed isolating himself in other places. But those options didn't seem good enough to the authorities so he ended up in the hotel. However, this man seems to have a severe dislike of being restricted to a room. He managed to sneak out of the hotel one day and brought a ladder with him on his secret return.
This ladder allowed him to sneak out unnoticed three times more from the isolation facility. But then, the object was discovered and removed by hotel authorities. But he managed to get another one courtesy an accomplice that was assisting him. And he used this one too, leaving the hotel again.
Arrest of Culprit
Once the authorities found out about his escapades, they started tracking down this man. Eventually, he was discovered hiding in his girlfriend's house, and that too, in her cupboard. This must have been an embarrassing, if not humiliating experience from him.
The excuse given by the quarantine violator might appear amusing to some people. He said that the day he was caught was his girlfriend's birthday and she would have been very angry if he hadn't shown up.
Unfortunately for the man, this excuse didn't inspire any sympathy from the courts. With Australia moving towards stricter guidelines for enforcing the rules, the court said such behavior needs to be strongly reprimanded and a message needs to be sent to everyone that such violations of rules are not acceptable. So, he was punished with a jail sentence of six months.
This, though, is not the first case of a person being given half-a-year prison term for the crime of violating quarantine. Four others have been punished in the same manner. Last month, authorities in another city, Melbourne, also introduced a new regulation that allowed police officers to enter a house without a warrant.
