ROME - A Saudi tourist, Fahad Ghazi Hassoubah, who wildly revved a Maserati four wheel drive jeep down the Spanish Steps last May has been ordered to stand trial on charges of running up at least 46,000 euros of restoration costs by damaging the hisoric monument and risks spending five years in prison. 

 The Municipality of Rome has filed a civil suit against Hassoubah through the lawyer Enrico Maggiore, accusing him of destruction, dispersion, deterioration, and disfigurement, and with the soiling and illicit use of cultural or landscape assets. 

 The trial date is set for the Jan 25, 2025, as the engineer initially promised to compensate for the damage telling the local police: “I didn't do it on purpose, it was a mistake. If there's a need, I'll pay what there is to pay", however, he has apparently since changed his mind and returned to Saudi Arabia. 

 His lawyer defended him in court saying that the incident was the fault of the Municipality because “the presence of the staircase, which the engineer would have found himself climbing by surprise, was not clearly indicated” and that the “Municipality could have installed a bollard or barrier that would catch the driver's attention.”

 Hassoubah has even gone as far as to say that he is the one who is entitled to the 46,000 euros in addition to defamation charges because the municipality released the video of him driving on the Trinita dei Monti which then went viral.  

 The 38-year-old, who was spotted a few days after the incident at Milan's Malpensa airport on his way home, is contested by the public prosecutor's charge of the "destruction, dispersion, deterioration, disfigurement, soiling, and illicit use of cultural or landscape assets" Commencing a case in the protection of cultural heritage which provides for sentences of between two and five years as well as a near to 50 000 euro fine. 

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