[CPProt.net] Oslo police make fifth arrest in 'Scream' theft

[MSN CPPnet]

Oslo police make fifth arrest in 'Scream' theft
Reuters
Jun. 3, 2005 - Police in the Norwegian capital on Friday arrested a fifth
suspect in the hunt to recover the stolen 1893 masterpiece "The Sceam" by
the painter Edvard Munch.

The latest arrest came two days after the City of Oslo offered a reward of 2
million crowns ($310,300) for information leading to recovery of "The
Scream" and another Munch painting "Madonna" stolen from an Oslo museum last
summer.

But police declined to say if the arrest had any connection with the reward
offer for the missing pictures.

"We have not yet found the paintings. We are still optimistic, but it can
take some time," police attorney Morten Hojem Ervik told Reuters.

Police arrested the man in his late 20s in central Oslo, and suspect him of
being one of three robbers who took part in the Aug. 22 daylight robbery of
the paintings from the Munch Museum, Ervik said.

Two armed robbers ran into the museum, threatened staff with a handgun and
forced people to lie down before pulling the pictures off the wall and
walking out the front door to a get-away car driven by a third man.

Ervik declined to say what role the man arrested on Friday is thought to
have played.

Police have called two earlier detained suspects accomplices, identified
another as one of the three robbers and a fourth as the planner of the
robbery. Norwegian media have said one of the four was the driver.

Those four suspects remain in police custody. All have denied involvement.

The fifth suspect will be questioned over the weekend and brought before a
court on Monday, Ervik said.

"The Scream" shows a terrified waif-like figure clutching its head beneath a
blood-red sky. It is an icon of angst for a century scarred by horrors such
as the atom bomb and the Holocaust.

The less well-known "Madonna," also from 1893, depicts a mysterious
bare-breasted woman with long black hair. Munch painted several versions of
his best-known paintings, all of them priceless.

Munch, a founder of modern expressionism, lived from 1863 to 1944.