Four men who went on trial in Berlin Thursday denied involvement in the spectacular 2017 museum theft of a giant commemorative gold coin called the “Big Maple Leaf” valued at 3.75 million euros ($4.3 million). Police had “presented not a single shred of firm evidence,” argued Toralf Noeding, defence lawyer for the three alleged thieves — brothers Wayci, 23, and Ahmed Remmo, 20, and their cousin Wissam Remmo, 21. Noeding also said that his clients had suffered prejudice from the broad media coverage of their extended family with roots in Lebanon, which police and prosecutors consider an organised crime group. Also in the dock and claiming innocence was 20-year-old former museum security guard Denis Umut W., the alleged inside man, accused of giving the others crucial information for the break-in. His lawyer Marcel Kelz denied media reports that the ex-guard had made major purchases, including an 11,000 euro gold chain, and shown interest in buying a Mercedes-Benz car and property month

An ancient Egyptian pharaonic stone tablet that was stolen from Karnak temple was repatriated this week from Britain where it had been touted for sale, Egypt’s antiquities ministry said. “The piece was last seen in the open museum in Luxor temple in the early 1990s,” Shaaban Abdel Gawad, who is in charge of archaeological collections at the ministry, told AFP on Wednesday. “The necessary legal measures” were taken to recover the object, he added. The artefact was stolen from the Karnak temple’s open museum and was spotted on online auction sites, the ministry said. The sale was cancelled, the statement said. The artefact is part of a cartouche — an ornamental tablet — of Pharoah Amenhotep I, of the 17th dynasty, who ruled in the 16th century BC. The antiquities ministry said that the piece had been retrieved b

Germany on Tuesday returned a painting looted by the Nazis to the heirs of French Jewish politician and resistance leader Georges Mandel. The portrait of a seated woman by 19th-century French painter Thomas Couture had been on display in a spectacular collection hoarded by Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of a Nazi-era art dealer. German Culture Minister Monika Gruetters presented the work to relatives of Mandel — who was executed by French fascists near Paris in 1944 — in a ceremony at the Martin Gropius Bau museum in Berlin. Experts determined two years ago that the painting had been looted from Mandel, relying on a small hole in the canvas as evidence of its provenance. Mandel’s lover had cited the hole above the seated woman’s torso when she reported the painting stolen after the war. Gruetters was joined at the c

January is about cleansing the past and making new starts. But since the early 1990s, independent polls have shown the rapid growth of those without a religious affiliation. So where do people go to confess, if not to a higher power? Two curators thought … perhaps an art gallery? On Jan. 5, 2019, Durden and Ray in downtown Los Angeles celebrated the start of the year with an exhibition that allows people to cleanse their souls through the art of disclosure. Curated by Dani Dodge and Alanna Marcelletti, “Disclosure: Confessions for Modern Times” features artists Kim Abeles, Jorin Bossen, Kimberly Brooks, Joe Davidson, Dani Dodge, Donald Fodness, Kathryn Hart, Debby and Larry Kline, Conchi Sanford, Ed Tahaney and Steven Wolkoff. For this exhibition, Dodge and Marcelletti decided to play devil’s advocates and create