Drizzt
Member
BBC Monitoring International Reports
January 22, 2003
LENGTH: 400 words
HEADLINE: CZECH POLICE RECOVER VALUABLE WEAPONS STOLEN FROM AUSTERLITZ BATTLE MEMORIAL
BODY:
Brno, 22 January: The police have found 16 historical shooting weapons from England, France an Austria which were stolen from the memorial of the 1805 Slavkov Austerlitz battle, south Moravia, last year, Antonin Recek, the director of the Brno Regional Museum administering the memorial, has told CTK.
The memorial, called the Peace Mould, commemorates "the battle of three emperors" at Slavkov in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. The French, Austrian and Russian armies took part in the battle and almost 30,000 soldiers died at the battlefield. The stolen weapons from the Napoleonic era were found by the police in an empty house, where young people used to meet, in Lipnik nad Becvou near Prerov, north Moravia, on Tuesday 21 January .
"The police have done very good work. The weapons are undamaged. We are very glad that they have been traced," Recek said.
"So far we do not know who has hidden them in the forsaken building," policeman Jaroslav Hausknecht told CTK.
The finding of the valuable 300-year old weapons raised an extraordinary media interest. Several television crews, photographers nad reporters from the national as well as regional press visited the police station in Olomouc, north Bohemia, where the weapons had been transferred from Lipnik.
The weapons are of an enormous historical value, three of them are completely unique.
"Their value in crowns is also very high," north Moravian police spokeswoman Dagmar Bednarcikova told CTK adding that the weapons were insured for 1.3m korunas.
Various kinds of pistols, riffles and carbines, exhibited in the Slavkov memorial since April, 2001, were stolen in July, 2002. The perpetrators stole the weapons within only two minutes and quickly left the scene before the police arrived, four minutes after the alarm signal.
According to the police, the thieves must have been very experienced and they planned their act carefully. The police suspect a gang of ten people from Moravia which is suspected of the total of eleven burglaries into historical buildings. Most of the gang members have been already detained and put into custody.
If the thieves succeeded in selling the stolen weapons, they could get a couple of millions of crowns for them, according to experts.
(One dollar equals 29.27 korunas.)
Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 0918 gmt 22 Jan 03
January 22, 2003
LENGTH: 400 words
HEADLINE: CZECH POLICE RECOVER VALUABLE WEAPONS STOLEN FROM AUSTERLITZ BATTLE MEMORIAL
BODY:
Brno, 22 January: The police have found 16 historical shooting weapons from England, France an Austria which were stolen from the memorial of the 1805 Slavkov Austerlitz battle, south Moravia, last year, Antonin Recek, the director of the Brno Regional Museum administering the memorial, has told CTK.
The memorial, called the Peace Mould, commemorates "the battle of three emperors" at Slavkov in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. The French, Austrian and Russian armies took part in the battle and almost 30,000 soldiers died at the battlefield. The stolen weapons from the Napoleonic era were found by the police in an empty house, where young people used to meet, in Lipnik nad Becvou near Prerov, north Moravia, on Tuesday 21 January .
"The police have done very good work. The weapons are undamaged. We are very glad that they have been traced," Recek said.
"So far we do not know who has hidden them in the forsaken building," policeman Jaroslav Hausknecht told CTK.
The finding of the valuable 300-year old weapons raised an extraordinary media interest. Several television crews, photographers nad reporters from the national as well as regional press visited the police station in Olomouc, north Bohemia, where the weapons had been transferred from Lipnik.
The weapons are of an enormous historical value, three of them are completely unique.
"Their value in crowns is also very high," north Moravian police spokeswoman Dagmar Bednarcikova told CTK adding that the weapons were insured for 1.3m korunas.
Various kinds of pistols, riffles and carbines, exhibited in the Slavkov memorial since April, 2001, were stolen in July, 2002. The perpetrators stole the weapons within only two minutes and quickly left the scene before the police arrived, four minutes after the alarm signal.
According to the police, the thieves must have been very experienced and they planned their act carefully. The police suspect a gang of ten people from Moravia which is suspected of the total of eleven burglaries into historical buildings. Most of the gang members have been already detained and put into custody.
If the thieves succeeded in selling the stolen weapons, they could get a couple of millions of crowns for them, according to experts.
(One dollar equals 29.27 korunas.)
Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 0918 gmt 22 Jan 03
