Cap. 411 Art. 10Offences.

(1) Any person who unlawfully removes and applies for his own benefit or that of any other person any thing which is abandoned by its owner on account of any disaster, fire, or other event when the life of the owner or any other person was in jeopardy, shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a period of not less than six months and not more than ten years. Provided that in assessing punishment, the Court shall take into consideration not only the value of the thing, but also the circumstances of hardship to which the owner was exposed in abandoning the thing.

(2) When the offence is committed by any person who is lawfully entrusted under this Act or any other law to assist persons in danger of losing their life or their property, the punishment shall be increased by two degrees.

(3) Any person who enters without due authorisation any area delimited by officers of the Department of Civil Protection shall, for the mere fact of entering, be guilty of an offence, and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a period of not less than one month and not more than six months.

(4) Any person who refuses to comply immediately with a requisition of any thing ordered under any power conferred by this Act, even if verbally communicated to him, shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a and does not desist from his actions when warned, even verbally, shall be guilty of an offence, and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months.

(6) Any person who fails to comply with any regulation issued under this Act shall be guilty of a contravention, unless the specific regulation imposes a penalty which is stated to be of an administrative nature.

(7) It shall not be a defence to a charge under this article that the person was acting as a professional person in mass communications and that the acts were intended as an exercise of the right to inform.