Seven Frenchmen and an Italian go on trial in Paris on Wednesday for stealing a work by graffiti artist Banksy that had been sprayed onto an emergency door of the Bataclan theatre in Paris to honour victims of the November 2015 attacks.
In June 2018, Banksy created a mural of a veiled female figure in a mournful pose on a fire exit door of the concert venue, where 90 people were killed in attacks by Islamist gunmen that caused 130 fatalities in Paris and its outskirts.
The door, stolen in January 2019, was found in 2020 in a farmhouse by the Italian police and given back to France.
"Many people in the audience escaped through this emergency door. It has lived, heard and seen the whole massacre," French Ambassador to Rome Christian Masset said at the time.
Banksy, whose real identity is unknown, has become one of the most well-known personalities of the modern art scene with a series of inspired works in public places that combine street art techniques with topical themes.
(Reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Alison Williams)
