[MSN] St. Petersburg fine arts museum theft suspect released

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

St. Petersburg fine arts museum theft suspect released

ST. PETERSBURG. Aug 15 (Interfax) - One of the four men arrested as part 
of an investigation into the theft of 221 exhibits from the famous 
Hermitage museum of fine arts in St. Petersburg has been released.

Antiquarian Maxim Shepel was freed after staying 10 days in custody 
without being charged, his lawyer Andrei Pavlov told Interfax.

While in custody, Shepel suffered an eye injury and was admitted to a 
jail hospital, from where he was to have been moved to an ordinary 
hospital on Tuesday.

The three suspects remaining in custody are the husband and son of 
curator Larisa Zavadskaya and a friend of that family, Ivan Sobolev, who 
is a lecturer at St. Petersburg State University.

The theft was discovered during an inspection in spring 2006.

http://www.interfax.ru