Sawt Falasteen - Six Georgians jailed for theft of rare Russian books in France

The trial is the latest case seeking justice for a spate of similar heists in recent years from libraries across Europe, suspected to be the work of an organised network with potential links to Russia.

The thieves made away with rare Russian classics worth millions in total, including by 19th-century literary greats Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Lermontov.

The six defendants -- five men and a woman -- were all found guilty overnight Friday to Saturday of criminal conspiracy with intent to commit an offence, while some were rapped for the theft of a cultural asset on display.

Two were sentenced in absentia, as they had already been arrested in their native Georgia, which does not extradite its citizens.

Another pair -- identified only as Mikheil Z. and Beqa T. -- have already been convicted and imprisoned in other countries for similar crimes and have been temporarily handed over to France.

Mikheil Z., 50, was handed the heaviest punishment of seven years in jail and a ban on ever setting foot on French soil once released and deported. He had already been sentenced last year in Lithuania to three years and four months in prison for the organised theft of 19th-century publications valued at 606,000 euros ($698,000).

Beqa T., 49, copped a four-year sentence, on top of the three years and six months in prison he had already been handed in Estonia.

In his submissions, the prosecutor stressed that the six defendants' theft had been "massive, organised, planned and executed with meticulousness and cynicism".

- Russian ring? -

The thefts -- which also hit Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic -- spurred the creation of a joint investigation team under the European Union police and justice coordination agencies Europol and Eurojust that led to several arrests in 2024.

The crimes in France took place in 2023 at the Diderot Library of the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) in the eastern city of Lyon, and at the National Library of France (BnF) and the University Library of Languages and Civilisations (BULAC) in Paris.

According to investigators, the thieves went to the libraries to consult rare and valuable works, photographing and measuring them, and returned later to replace them with virtually undetectable copies.

Between March and October 2023, Mikheil Z. went to the BnF 40 times to request access to manuscripts, mainly by Pushkin, claiming he was doing research on democracy in 19th-century Russian literature.

In November, the library realised nine works had been replaced with copies, with an estimated loss of 650,000 euros.

In June 2024, Russia's Litfond auction house listed in its catalogue a second edition of Pushkin's "The Prisoner of the Caucasus", a book corresponding to a copy stolen from the BnF.

The auction house told French authorities it had documentation proving the book was acquired from its owner in Russia in 2014/2015.

In the eyes of the investigating magistrates, the thefts may be linked to a desire to repatriate Russia's cultural heritage at a time when Moscow's relations with Europe have been increasingly strained over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

None of the stolen works has been found, though BnF lawyer Alexandre de Konn said the institution "has not given up hope of recovering these works".

K.Hassan--SF-PST