French policeman at Bataclan attack found stolen Banksy door in Italy

L’AQUILA, Italy: A French policeman who intervened during the 2015 terror attack on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris was overcome with emotion when he and his team found a stolen work in Italy by famed British street artist Banksy commemorating the victims, his colleague said. The image of a girl in mourning was painted on one of the emergency doors of the Parisian venue, where Islamic State gunmen massacred 90 people. It had been cut out and taken in 2019. Italian and French police found it on Wednesday in the attic of a small farmstead in the Abruzzo region in central Italy, rented by a Chinese family. Officers said the family did not appear to be connected to the crime. Christophe Cengig from the Organised Crime Unit at the French embassy in Rome told AFP that an unnamed colleague who had seen victims gunned down in Paris had been at the scene when the work was found. “It was a very emotional moment for my colleague. We’ve known each other for 20 years. He intervened at the Bataclan attack. What he saw inside, such tragedy, all those bodies... This is a huge achievement for him,” Cengig said. “Coming here, finding it (the work)... it has a strong symbolic and emotional value, so we’re very, very, very happy”.