Second man pleads guilty to theft of £95,000 Banksy artwork from Belfast gallery – The Irish Times

A second man on Wednesday pleaded guilty to the theft of a £95,000 (€110,000) Banksy artwork.

Ahmed Bouazzi (40), of Roden Street, Belfast, was due to stand trial next week on the single count of theft he faced.

Defence counsel Luke Curran told Judge Gordon Kerr on Wednesday he had an application to have Mr Bouazzi rearraigned on the sole charge against him.

When the court clerk put the charge to the defendant that he stole an artwork to the value of £95,000, Mr Bouazzi, who is originally from Tunisia, replied from the dock: “Guilty.”

Mr Curran asked for a pre-sentence report on the defendant to be prepared by the Probation Board and Judge Kerr said he would pass sentence next month.

Last week, co-accused Adil Hajjaj was jailed for six months over the art theft and was told he would spend a further six months on supervised licence upon his release from prison.

Hajjaj (50), of Sandymount Street in south Belfast, had pleaded guilty to the theft of the limited-edition Laugh Now print from Charles Gilmore Fine Art gallery in Belfast on April 2nd this year.

He further pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods on the same date, namely a bottle of rum from Ross’s Auctioneers.

It was the prosecution case that the incident involved a “high-value theft of some £95,000 worth of a piece of art which is a limited edition of a Banksy print”.

Belfast Crown Court heard that at about 4pm on April 2nd, the deputy manager was alone in the art gallery, as the owner had left.

She told police that a man, later identified as Mr Bouazzi, entered the gallery and started asking “random questions’’ about the authenticity of the artwork on display.

“He started to tower over me in an attempt to distract me and divert my attention, physically leaning over me and blocking my view while leaning over me,” she told police.

A minute or so later, a second male entered through the front door and she recognised Hajjaj from his previous visits to the gallery.

She said Hajjaj always arrived in the gallery shortly after the owner left. She added that she heard “rustling and movement in the back of the gallery and he then left carrying the Primark bag which contained a painting”.

Mr Bouazzi continued asking her questions before leaving the gallery about 60 seconds later.

The deputy manager checked the back of the gallery and noticed an artwork which had been on an easel was now missing, a “limited edition Banksy monkey painting which was valued at £95,000″.

The work was subsequently recovered by police from Hajjaj while he was walking along the nearby Ormeau Road in south Belfast with co-accused, Mr Bouazzi.

Hajjaj’s defence barrister Sean O’Hare said the motivation behind the theft was to sell it and buy alcohol.

“He is originally from Morocco and is seeking asylum here. He lives off £40 per week, lives in accommodation approved and provided by the Home Office, and he is not allowed to work because of his asylum application,“ outlined Mr O’Hare.

“He states that he was unaware of the value of the item. He had been in the gallery on a number of previous occasions as he does have an interest in art, but he did not know the high stated value of the print.

“There was no price on this particular piece of art. In the circles that he moves in there is absolutely no way he was going to obtain anywhere near close to its high value.”

Jailing Hajjaj, Judge Patricia Smyth said it was a “planned theft and not opportunistic”.

The Belfast Recorder added: “It is obvious from your repeated attendances at the gallery that this was a high-end gallery with matters of value.”