1/4 The doors of MPV Gallery were blown out (Photo: Toby de Kort/SQ Vision).
Clumsy. Justice cannot describe the art theft in Oisterwijk last year in any other way. Suspect Eloy S. (24) is suspected of blowing up the doors of the MPV Gallery with an explosive and taking four screen prints of Andy Warhol. Justice demanded five years in prison against him in the court in Breda on Thursday.
So the justice department called the robbery clumsy. And that started with taking the four frames of one meter by eighty centimeters. They did not fit in the Peugeot with which the men had driven to the Dorpsstraat in Oisterwijk. And so the men violently pulled two screen prints from their frames and left the other two behind in their haste.
More blunders
And there was a lot more crap. Eloy S. turned out to be an art lover, who had even applied for a job at MPV Gallery. During a visit to the gallery in the center of Oisterwijk, he was also recognized as an employee of a gallery in Eindhoven, where he had previously worked.
It was also funny that he looked up things on his phone about the gallery and the famous screen prints by Andy Warhol with the ‘Reigning Queens’ with four queens who were in power in 1985, including Queen Beatrix. Eloy was in contact with his father about the artworks and sent him photos. His father, in turn, went to take a look at the gallery and sent a photo of the facade.
Explosion in the night
The works of art hung briefly in Oisterwijk, but later had to be sold for around four thousand euros at the PAN art fair in Amsterdam. But, it didn’t get that far. On November 1 at three o’clock in the morning a huge explosive went off and the doors of MPV Gallery were blown off. The gallery itself was a mess and surrounding buildings also suffered damage. In no time the Warhols were gone and the police were looking for the perpetrator.
The Peugeot was quickly found, a short distance away, but there was no trace of the two screen prints taken and the perpetrators. But it didn’t take long for the police to arrive at Eloy. But he knew nothing.
The young man who grew up in Oisterwijk remained silent for seven months. According to the judiciary, he waited until the file was completely ready and then adjusted his story accordingly. Yes, he had picked up the Peugeot in Weelde from his brother, but ‘someone’ had to do that and at night he was woken up at his mother’s house in Berkel-Enschot by men who told him that he had to pick up the car again in Oisterwijk.
But the public prosecutor brushed all of that off the table and identified Eloy as one of the perpetrators. He was involved in the explosion and the robbery. And he was the co-driver of the Peugeot, she judged based on all the evidence. In fact, his blood was found in the car. Remarkably, there is still a case against Eloy S. He is also alleged to have stolen works of art from the gallery in Eindhoven, where he worked.
Silence in the courtroom
Eloy was mainly silent during the hearing. Mentally he couldn’t handle it, he said. He also did not want to say anything due to the presence of the press and the fact that his brother and father appear in the file.
Are you interested in even more special court stories? Then subscribe to our podcast and don’t miss anything about crime and lawsuits in Brabant.
Waiting for privacy settings…
Whether his silence will help him is highly questionable. Justice cannot accept that he caused such a serious explosion and stole four very special works of art. Works of art that should be considered lost. Two are lost and the two screen prints left behind were severely damaged by the rain. And Eloy does not want to say where the missing works of art have gone.
During one of the rare moments when he did speak, Eloy said he was sorry that so much misery had been caused to the people involved. Eloy S. himself turned out to have a lot of love for art and the public prosecutor even called his own work ‘quite nice’. But for now, S. has no plans to make art himself, he said.
Verdict follows
If it is up to the judiciary, he will have enough time for that in the next five years. However, according to his lawyer, there is much less evidence than the justice department thinks. There is no evidence that S. was involved in the explosion, he ruled. It may seem logical that Eloy S. was involved, but there is no real evidence for the explosion and the robbery, he argued.
The court will rule in this case on October 23.