Thieves who stole a mural by street artist Banksy on an emergency exit door of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris used a crowbar and angle grinder to prise it free in a crime that lasted just minutes, a French court heard.
The work depicting a veiled and mournful figure is thought to have been a tribute to victims of the Islamist militant attacks against the Bataclan and other entertainment venues in Paris in 2015.
Seven Frenchmen and an Italian went on trial in Paris for the theft on Wednesday.
Defence lawyers for some of the men framed the theft as a case of small-time crooks who ended up with a more troublesome object on their hands than they had anticipated.
The lawyer for Franck Grillet-Aubert, one of the three men accused of prising the door from its fittings, said his client had no idea what he was stealing.
"It's simple. Since the beginning of this case he has said he was there because he knew how to cut doors. It's as stupid as that. He was asked to do that, he did it, he put the door in the van and went home," the lawyer told reporters outside the court.
The trio, captured on surveillance camera but identified after police tracked their phones following a separate theft, have admitted theft but dispute who was behind the crime.
Banksy, who is based in Britain and whose real identity is unknown, has become one of the most well-known personalities of the modern art scene with a series of works in public places that combine street art techniques with topical themes.
He spray-painted the mural on the Bataclan door in 2018. It was stolen in January 2019 and found the following year in a farmhouse by Italian police.
Ninety people were killed inside the Bataclan during the coordinated attacks across Paris by Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers that caused 130 fatalities in total.
"Many people in the (Bataclan) audience escaped through this emergency door. It lived, heard and saw the whole massacre," French Ambassador to Rome Christian Masset said at the time the door was found in Italy.
Reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Janet Lawrence
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Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem, in his first public address since Israel assassinated the group's chief last week, said the movement is ready to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris poked at Donald Trump over crowd sizes, his refusal to debate again and his privileged background on Sunday as she hauled in campaign cash in California and held a raucous rally at the same Nevada venue where the Republican nominee had appeared just two weeks ago.
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Sarah McLachlan is returning to her hometown of Halifax in November.
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The fourth and final walk in memory of Megan Gallagher drew around one hundred people in Saskatoon on Sunday.
RCMP are seeking tips after a church on Main Street in Loon Lake burned to the ground.
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This Monday, Sept. 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a federal statutory holiday and day of remembrance for the Indigenous children who never came home from Canadian residential schools, as well as those who survived them.
A pedestrian has died after reportedly getting struck by an OPP cruiser in Bala early Sunday morning.
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A pedestrian has died after reportedly getting struck by an OPP cruiser in Bala early Sunday morning.
OPP officers arrested a suspect while he was in the middle of a possible theft Sunday morning in Wasaga Beach.
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The City of Windsor has unveiled plans for the “Park in Perfect Harmony†initiative in the downtown core.
Canadian country-rock band Blue Rodeo is booked to return to Caesars Windsor this winter.
Seas of orange shirts have come to represent a growing awareness of Canada's history of oppressing Indigenous Peoples – but that awareness must translate into more "substantive changes" from the government, according to a B.C. chief.
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Fire crews in Vernon, B.C., responded to a large house fire early Saturday morning.
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The Red Bridge, a historic landmark in Kamloops, B.C., was completely destroyed by fire early Thursday morning.
The sentencing for three men convicted of helping lead and coordinate the COVID-19 protest blockade at Coutts, Alta., in 2022 has been delayed.
A 10-year-old boy from Lethbridge is being praised as a hero after a routine summer outing at the pool nearly turned tragic for his friend.
A man and woman have been charged after a Lethbridge ice creamery was broken into earlier this week. Staff arrived at Cookie Crimes, in the 300 block of Sixth Street South, just before 5:30 a.m. on Monday to discover the front window broken.
Overnight on Thursday as the community of Elliot Lake was resting to prepare for the upcoming Kraft Hockeyville celebrations, when vandals struck a building that has been top of mind for the northern Ontario city for more than a year.
Ontario Provincial Police remind the public that ‘a case is never closed until it is solved,’ while highlighting the force's continued investigation of the 1996 disappearance of Melanie Ethier.
Sault residents may notice some commotion on the Algoma University campus over the next two weeks as a team conducts an archaeological search.
He may not have logged the fastest time or even gone the full distance, but residents of a Newfoundland town agree the goat who unexpectedly joined the local weekend half marathon was the event's undisputed champion.
A mother in a community where the cost of living is one of the highest in the country says grocery prices are 'inhumane' and retailers are putting profits ahead of people’s basic human right to food.
A soccer game in England on Tuesday night drove a spike in online traffic across the Atlantic to a website launched by the Newfoundland and Labrador government.
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