Female suspect, 38, charged in Louvre heist: AFP / Photo: Dimitar DILKOFF - AFP
Female suspect, 38, charged in Louvre heist: AFP
A woman arrested this week along with four other suspects over the unprecedented jewel heist at the Louvre on Saturday appeared before a magistrate who will decide whether to detain her.
The 38-year-old woman was in tears as she confirmed that she lives in the northern La Courneuve suburb of Paris, an AFP journalist said.
She has been charged with complicity in organised theft and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime.
At the request of the prosecution, the hearing continued behind closed doors.
Earlier Saturday, the Paris public prosecutor's office did not specify how many suspects would be brought before the court.
Last month, thieves wielding power tools raided the Louvre, the world's most visited art museum, in broad daylight, taking just seven minutes to steal jewellery worth an estimated $102 million.
French authorities initially announced the arrest of two suspects, and this week prosecutors said that police had arrested five more people, including a prime suspect.
The five detentions took place in and around Paris, particularly in Seine-Saint-Denis north of Paris.
One of the five people arrested this week was released without charge on Friday, said his lawyers, Sofia Bougrine and Noemie Gorin.
"In these serious crime cases, we find that waves of arrests look more like drift nets," Bougrine told AFP on Saturday, pointing to what she said was the indiscriminate nature of some of the arrests.
The first two men arrested previously were charged with theft and criminal conspiracy after "partially admitting to the charges", Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said this week.
One is a 34-year-old Algerian national living in France, who was identified by DNA traces found on one of the scooters used to flee the heist.
The second suspect is a 39-year-old unlicensed taxi driver from the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers.
Both were known to the police for having committed thefts.
The first was arrested as he was about to board a plane for Algeria at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.
The second was apprehended shortly after near his home, and there was no evidence to suggest that he was planning to go abroad, prosecutors said.
They are suspected of being the two who broke into the gallery while two accomplices waited outside.
The stolen loot remains missing.
The thieves dropped a diamond- and emerald-studded crown that once belonged to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, as they escaped.
The burglars made off with eight other items of jewellery.
Among them are an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diadem that once belonged to the Empress Eugenie, which is dotted with nearly 2,000 diamonds.
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J.Lubrano--PV
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