NORWAY: A hunt throughout Norway is under way for armed thieves who forced their way into a lightly guarded Oslo museum and ripped the Edvard Munch masterpiece The Scream and another painting from the wall as stunned visitors watched in shock.
Despite a large number of leads, police had not made any arrests 24 hours after the daring daylight raid at Oslo's Munch Museum.
The Scream - a painting Munch made in four versions - depicts an anguished figure who appears to be screaming, or listening to a scream, while holding his hands to his head.
It was loaded into a waiting car along with another famous Munch work, Madonna. The getaway car and the picture frames were found by police in Oslo hours after the robbery.
"We are working with tips," Insp Iver Stensrud said at a news conference yesterday. "Many tips are coming and have been all day . . . It takes time to go through."
He said there had been no word from the thieves about a possible demand for a ransom and there were no suspects. He declined to speculate on motives, but art experts say the paintings were probably stolen for ransom or as a "trophy" robbery to impress other criminals, since it would be virtually impossible to sell them anywhere because they are so well known.
The Munch works were not insured against theft, because it was impossible to set a price on them, said Mr John Oeyaas, managing director of Oslo Forsikring, the city-owned company which insured the paintings against damage.
"It was a conscious decision," he said. "These are irreplaceable and insurance would mean nothing. The total loss of an irreplaceable item cannot be compensated." - (AP)