Ukrainian goes on trial in France for stealing £1.3mln painting

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
30 Jan 23:50
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A Ukrainian man goes on trial in France after a stolen painting that is worth £1.3 million gets found in Kiev a year later in an unrelated raid.

French Ambassador to Ukraine Isabelle Dumont speaks during the presentation of the painting "Port de la Rochelle" (1915) by French artist Paul Signac (1863-1935) at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Kiev, on April 23, 2019. (AFP)

A Ukrainian man currently standing trial in France on charges that he orchestrated the theft of a €1.5 million (£1.3 million) painting that was found in a home in Kiev a year after it vanished from a Nancy museum.

Le Port de La Rochelle, a painting by Paul Signac, vanished from France's Musée de Beaux-Arts in 2018.

After three individuals slashed the painting with a box cutter, folded it up, and left the museum with it hidden beneath one of their raincoats, the museum personnel was shocked to see an empty frame on the wall.

The artwork vanished without a trace up until Kiev police raided a suspect's house for allegedly being connected to a murder a year later. During the raid, the unidentified suspect informed them that a valuable artwork was hidden in a cabinet and cautioned them to handle it with care.

Once the painting was found, the suspect allegedly incriminated Vadym Huzhva, 64 years old, who, at the time, was detained in Austria after being indicted for stealing a Renoir painting in Vienna also in 2018. When Huzhva was released in June 2020, he was extradited to France.

Huzhva said, on Monday, in court, which is expected to last two days, "I don’t see how I have anything to do with this. You have no proof of your allegations."

His lawyer further argued, “He’s not on the surveillance film. All you can see are three people who cannot be identified. All the video shows is the time the painting was stolen, but that’s all. He’s being blamed for the theft of a painting in France, which is strange. Without getting into the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, he says it’s a conspiracy.”

In parallel, Nancy Public Prosecutor François Pérain noted, “What surprised us was how unsophisticated the theft was. It was so simple,” adding, “They wore headgear, but they acted with their faces uncovered, entered by the main entrance and left through the same door.”

It is worth noting that Huzhva is also charged with additional crimes, including the loss of two works of art from a Versailles auction house, a painting from Béziers, southern France, in 2018, and a Renoir painting that vanished from a French auction house in the Paris region in 2017.