Khaberni - Australian police found a collection of stolen Egyptian artifacts and charged a 52-year-old man with executing a break-in and theft at night at a museum.
The man was accused of breaking a window and stealing the artifacts in the early hours of Friday morning from the Abby Museum of Art and Archaeology in Caboolture, Queensland.
The police announced that they had found all of the stolen items, except for a wooden sculpture of a cat, with minor damages, when inspecting a car the next day at a ferry station south of the museum.
The suspect was arrested that same night and faced multiple charges including forced entry into the museum and causing premeditated damage, with local media reporting that the man is named Miguel Simon Mongarrieta Monsalve.
The prosecutor said during the trial on Monday that the man stole a mummy mask, a necklace, a jewelry piece, and the wooden sculpture of the cat, causing "irreparable damages" to other pieces, according to the public television network "ABC".
The suspect told the police he believed the museum was associated with the Catholic Church, according to what the prosecution stated during the trial, and the museum administration expressed "gratitude and relief" for recovering the pieces, indicating that they would not display them "before each piece undergoes professional evaluation to ensure their preservation."
