CAIRO — A single security guard usually worked in the Cairo museum from which a Van Gogh was stolen and most of its cameras were out of order since 2006, the state news agency MENA reported on Saturday.
A prosecution investigation into the theft of the painting, "Poppy Flowers," found the museum had cut the number of guards from 30 to nine, and "most days the number was reduced so that there was only one guard in the museum," MENA reported.
It added that 30 out the museum's 47 surveillance cameras installed at the time had stopped working in 2006.
By the time the painting valued at more than 50 million dollars was stolen from the Mahmoud Khalil museum, which also houses works by Monet and Renoir, only seven out of 43 cameras left in place were working, public prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmud said last week.
None of the alarms for the paintings was working, he said.
Five people, including the head of the culture ministry's fine arts sector and museum guards, have been arrested and charged with negligence over the August 21 theft.
