Priceless Statue Melted for Silver
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WARSAW — Four men have been charged with stealing a priceless silver statue of Poland’s patron saint from Gniezno cathedral and melting down parts of it, the prosecutors’ office said Wednesday.
The life-size 17th-Century statue of St. Wojciech was ripped in March from the ornate sarcophagus where it reclined above the cathedral’s altar in Poland’s former capital.
The trunk of the statue, listed by the United Nations as an important religious work of art, was recovered intact. But the rest came to light only as lumps of silver at a garage in the northern port of Gdansk.
The official PAP news agency said the men faced up to 25 years imprisonment if convicted.
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