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THEFT

New footage of ‘ruthless’ subway robber

The pickpocket who stole an unconscious man’s valuables while the victim was lying unconscious on Stockholm subway tracks is suspected of having robbed another man according to newly released security video.

“This is Sweden’s most wanted man right now,” said Dan Östman of the south-Stockholm police to the Aftonbladet newspaper.

Police released the new footage, filmed in late August, which shows the robbery of a man who was seemingly passed out on a bench at the Enskedegård metro station, located south of Stockholm on the green line.

The new footage features a man who looks very much like the man featured in security camera footage released earlier this week on the TV3 programme Efterlyst (‘Wanted’) in which a 38-year-old man was robbed after falling down on the tracks and left lying unconscious.

The victim featured on the footage broadcast on Efterlyst was then hit by an oncoming subway train, in a case which has left Swedes’ aghast at the robber’s calculated crime.

In the newly released footage, a person who appears to be the same thief is shown sifting through the pockets of another drunken man who is sitting at on a bench at a metro station.

While the victim sits with his head in his hands, apparently inebriated, the thief searches through his bags and pockets.

“We recognize this person. It seems to have been some sort of approach that he was using,” said Östman.

“What you should do if you see the person is call 112 and if you want to leave tips then call 114 14 and we will forward the information to the investigators.”

According to Östman, police have received a number of tips after the airing of the incident in which the victim was hit by a train.

“We have 30 tips now that we’ve got from Efterlyst. It is mostly the public, people who have been affected in the same way, and who have probably seen this man in different places,” Östman told the newspaper.

When asked whether the police believe the man will be caught soon, Östman remained positive.

“The longer we can get the pictures out the bigger our chances are,” he said.

The train-track robbery, in which the victim was left to be hit by an oncoming train, has been classidied as aggravated theft.

“We are classifying it as aggravated theft rather than robbery, as the latter implies that the perpetrator threatens or renders his victim in a state of powerlessness and we didn’t see anything like that. The person who was drunk had achieved that state of powerlessness himself,” said Östman to TT.

That the perpetrator didn’t try to assist the helpless man on the tracks or call emergency services is not something he could be charged for.

“There is no law that says he has to take action,” said Östman to TT.

However, in the wake of the incident, which has also received media attention abroad, the Christian Democrats have renewed calls for Sweden to implement a good Samaritan law in hopes of preventing such incidents from occurring in the future.

“This is is what I would consider a textbook case where someone could be convicted for violating a good Samaritan law,” Christian Democrat justice police spokesperson Caroline Szyber told the TT news agency.

TT/The Local/og

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ART

Spanish banker gets jail term for trying to smuggle Picasso masterpiece out of Spain on yacht

A Spanish court has sentenced a former top banker to 18 months in jail for trying to smuggle a Picasso painting deemed a national treasure out of the country on a sailing yacht.

Spanish banker gets jail term for trying to smuggle Picasso masterpiece out of Spain on yacht
Head of a Young Woman by Pablo Picasso Photo: AFP

The court also fined ex-Bankinter head Jaime Botín €52.4 million ($58.4 million), according to the Madrid court ruling issued on January 14th which was made public on Thursday.   

It awarded ownership of the work, “Head of a Young Girl”, to the Spanish state.

Botin, 83, is unlikely to go to prison as in Spain first offenders for non-violent crimes are usually spared jail time for sentences of less than two years.   

French customs seized the work, which is estimated to be worth €26 million, in July 2015 on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, halting what they said was an attempt by Botin to export it to Switzerland to sell it.

His lawyers argued at the time that he was sending it for storage in a vault in Geneva but the court found him guilty of “smuggling cultural goods” for removing the painting “from national territory without a permit”.

Botin, whose family are one of the founders of the Santander banking group, had been trying since 2012 to obtain authorisation to export the painting.   

However Spain's culture ministry refused the request because there was “no similar work on Spanish territory” from the same period in Picasso's life.    

In 2015, a top Spanish court sided with the authorities and declared the work of art “unexportable” on the grounds that it was of “cultural interest”.    

Picasso painted it during his pre-Cubist phase in Gosol, Catalonia, in 1906. It was bought by Botin in London in 1977.

Botin's lawyers had argued that the work should not be subjected to an export ban since it was acquired in Britain and was on board a British-flagged vessel when it was seized.

When customs officials boarded the yacht, its captain only presented two documents — one of which was the court ruling ordering that the painting be kept in Spain.

The painting is currently stored at the Reina Sofia modern art museum in Madrid, which houses Picasso's large anti-war masterpiece “Guernica”.

READ MORE: Banking family's Picasso seized on Corsica boat

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