Art heist trial in Romania adjourned until September, lawyers say paintings not burned

Bucharest’s Sector 3 Court started on Tuesday (August 13) a trial of the six Romanians accused of stealing several paintings from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam. However, the trial was adjourned until September 10, 2013. After Tuesday’s hearing, the lawyers of two of the suspects stated that they found out from their clients that the stolen paintings weren’t burned. “Our clients are waiting for the correct procedural framework in order to take all steps needed to hand over these paintings to the Dutch authorities. Our clients informed us that these paintings have not been burned,” said Maria Vasii, Eugen Darie’s lawyer, quoted by local news agency Mediafax. She also added that the defenders’ documents lead them to believe that their clients are telling the truth. Radu Dogarus’ lawyer, Catalin Dancu, said he wants the samples taken from the stove where the paintings were possibly burned to be sent to the Louvre Museum, so that a new examination to clarify if the art works were burned or not. He also mentioned that the stolen paintings were brought to Romania, but weren’t damaged. Seven paintings were stolen by a group of Romanians from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam in October 2012 , namely Picasso’s Tete d’Arlequin, Monet’s Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge, Freud’s Woman with Eyes Closed, Matisse’s La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune, Gauguin’s Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte (in picture) and Meyer de Haan’s Autoportrait. Six men were sent for trail in the heist which caused a EUR 18 million prejudice: Radu Dogaru, Eugen Darie, Alexandru Bitu, Olga Dogaru, Petre Condrat and Adrian Procop. Radu Dogaru, one of the men who broke into the museum last year and stole the paintings , brought them to Romania inside pillows, and then deposited them at his mother’s house in the village of Carcaliu, Tulcea county. Dogaru’s mother first said she decided to burn the paintings in an attempt to help her son and hoping that if no evidence of the heist was found, he would escape jail, but later retracted her statement. Experts from Romania’s National History Museum have recently examined ash from the stove of Dogaru’s mother. Following the examination, the museum’s director Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu said that three of the paintings could have been burned. The art heist of century also became subject for a film. Romanian director Tudor Giurgiu and photographer Cristian Movila are currently working on this feature – length action movie, which will attempt to show how the robbery took place and how the paintings were possibly burned. The film could be in English and work with an international cast, given the worldwide interest for this story. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com