Banksy himself asked: a thief who stole a parking sign with a drawing of a rat was convicted in France (3 photos)
The musician who drove the aerial platform for theft was sentenced to two years probation and a 30 thousand euro fine. But the graffiti was never found. 
A French court has sentenced a man who stole a Banksy drawing from the Pompidou Center to two years probation. The defendant claimed that he was a friend of Banksy and that the British artist himself asked him to return the artwork painted on the back of a parking sign. The drawing itself has not yet been found.
Medzhidi R., a 38-year-old musician, prepared for theft. He drove the aerial platform to the back of the parking lot, broke the parking lot sign and stole the sign, on the back of which Banksy drew a masked rat with a utility knife.
At the trial, Medzhidi said that technically it was not theft, because he is a friend of Banksy and he himself asked him to return the drawing. 
He claimed that Banksy wanted to stop anyone from making money from street art, which he believes "has no value" and to "condemn the hypocrisy of the capitalist system that says what art has value and what art doesn't."
Medzhidi said that Banksy sent not only him, but also an entire team to steal the rat drawing. And that the “team” has already returned the stolen goods to England. The prosecutor said Banksy denied this through his representative. 
The court also sentenced Mejidi to pay a fine of 30,000 euros. He was ordered to pay more than 6,500 euros in damages to the Pompidou Center, which the court determined was the custodian of stolen cultural property.
Banksy decorated the French capital with murals in 2018 and appeared to confirm the rat's authenticity with a photo on his Instagram page that same year.
The Pompidou theft comes seven months after another Banksy work, dedicated to victims of the November 2015 Paris attacks, was stolen outside the Bataclan, the concert venue where Islamic State militants killed 90 people. In 2022, a French court sentenced eight men to sentences ranging from six months' probation to two years in prison for stealing the work and transporting it to Italy. Investigators found it hidden on a farm.
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