A tourist is accused of defacing a 1,200-year-old UNESCO temple in Japan by carving his name into a pillar, faces up to five years in prison

• A Canadian teenager is accused of defacing the 1,200-year-old Toshodaiji Kondo temple in Japan.
• The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If found guilty he faces up to five years in prison.
• This follows an incident in Italy in which a tourist carved "Ivan+Haley 23" into the wall of the Colosseum.

A Canadian teenager is accused of defacing a Japanese temple designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site just weeks after a similar incident at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy.

Police in Japan said the 17-year-old carved "Julian" with his fingernail into a wooden pillar of the Toshodaiji Kondo temple, a single-story Buddhist temple founded in 759 AD, according to BBC News.

The temple is one of eight protected historic monuments in the ancient city of Nara, in central Japan.

The teenager is accused of making the carving on the temple's "Golden Hall," local police told the Japanese newspaper The Mainichi.

A Japanese tourist spotted the teenager carving his name on July 7, telling him to stop before alerting temple staff, according to CNN.

The following day, police questioned him on suspicion of violating the country's cultural property protection law, per BBC News.

"The boy admitted his actions and says it was done not with the intent of harming Japanese culture," a police official told CNN. "He is now with his parents, who were with him when the incident occurred."

Under the Japanese law for the protection of cultural property,  a person who has damaged an object of "important cultural property" could face up to five years in prison or a fine of 300,000 Japanese Yen ($2,135).

The police official said the teenager would be referred to prosecutors if it was found that he had broken the law, per CNN.

A monk at the temple told The Mainichi that "even though it may have been done without malice, it is still regrettable and sad."

Insider was unable to reach the temple for comment.

This follows a similar incident in Italy, in which a tourist carved "Ivan+Haley 23" into the nearly 2,000-year-old Colosseum in Rome. The man in question faces fines of up to $16,000 and five years in jail.

In an apology letter reported on by Insider, the man claimed that he wasn't aware of the ancient monument's age or the seriousness of what he had done.