Abby Davis, FISM News

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The day after 20 men were convicted for their part in the 2015 Paris attacks, another French court handed down guilty verdicts to eight men for stealing a piece of art commemorating the tragedy.

In the summer of 2018, a mural appeared on an exit door of the Bataclan concert hall. The work, which is attributed to British graffiti artist Banksy, commemorates the victims who died inside the building and throughout Paris during the attacks.

The door was stolen seven months later.

In a crime that took less than 10 minutes, the men used a crowbar and an angle-grinder to pry the exit door off the back of the Bataclan concert hall. The door was then transported to Italy and housed in a hotel before being moved to a farm where Italian police recovered it in 2020.

The seven French men on trial included three who removed the door, three more men who transported it, and a millionaire lottery winner who helped to conceal it. The court also convicted a 58-year-old Italian man who owns the hotel where the painting was stored.

Most of the men received jail sentences ranging from two to four years, but the sentences will likely be served at home with ankle-bracelet monitors.

Prosecutor Valeria Cadignan told the court that the men, “being aware of the priceless value of the door, were looking to make a profit” rather than to deface the memory of the victims commemorated by the artwork.

During the coordinated strikes throughout the city on the night of November 13, 2015, the Bataclan concert hall suffered the deadliest attack. A concert had just begun at the 1500-person venue, which was sold out, when gunmen entered the building and opened fire on the crowd, killing 90 and wounding over 400.

“Many people in the (Bataclan) audience escaped through this emergency door. It lived, heard, and saw the whole massacre,” said French Ambassador to Rome Christian Masset when the door was found in Italy.