A life-size bronze statue of first lady Melania Trump in her native Slovenia has gone missing after someone apparently hacked it off at the ankles and took it away.
Police spokeswoman Alenka Drenik Rangus said on Friday that they were notified about the theft on Tuesday and had been working to identify who was responsible.
The original statue was made of wood and appeared in July 2019 but was destroyed in July 2020 when it was set ablaze in an apparent protest against Trump.
The Associated Press cited Slovenian news reports that said the statue had been sawed off at the ankles. Photographs appeared to show the stumps left over from the incident.
The original statue was made of wood and appeared in July 2019 but was destroyed in July 2020 when it was set ablaze in an apparent protest against Trump. A U.S.-based artist named Brad Downey then cast a bronze statue to replace the wooden one.
Downey had previously said that the art piece was intentionally political in nature, and he criticized the first lady for having her immigration to the U.S. fast-tracked while others had to wait.
Some of the locals told the New York Times that the incident could have been vandalism or could have been theft in order to melt down the statue for cash.
Others have previously said they didn’t appreciate the statue very much, and they reiterated that opinion after the statue’s disappearance.
“I think no one was really proud at this statue, not even the first lady of the USA,” said Franja Kranjc, who works at a bakery in Sevnica. “So I think it’s OK that it’s removed.”
“The image of the U.S. first lady was not something anyone was proud of,” said Sevnica authorities to BBC News.
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