The theft of Vincent Van Gogh's Poppy Flowers from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum has exposed the parlous state of security at Egypt's museums, reports Nevine El-Aref It was immediately after noon prayer on 21 August that guards at the Mahmoud Khalil Museum discovered that one of the prize exhibits -- the Van Gogh painting known as Poppy Flowers or Vase with Flowers, with an estimated value of $55 million -- was missing. The painting had been cut out of its frame, leaving only the wooden slats that supported it on display. A couple of hours after the theft, the Ministry of Culture reported that the painting had been recovered after security officers at Cairo Airport stopped an Italian couple who were trying to leave with the canvas. The reports, though, proved erroneous. The ministry quickly backtracked, insisting that the misleading statement originated with Mohsen Shaalan, head of the Fine Arts Section. At the same time, the Italian embassy in Egypt announced that no Italian citizens had been detained. Following initial police investigations Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud ordered the detention of Shaalan, four security guards at the museum and the curator responsible for the painting. They are likely to face charges of negligence and professional delinquency. Three other employees, among them the museum director Reem Ahmed, were set free on bail. All nine have been banned from travelling abroad until the completion of the investigations. According to the state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA) Mahmoud is holding Shaalan, who is in charge of the museum's financial and administrative affairs, responsible for the security lapses that led to the theft. Shaalan "neglected his duties and didn't improve lax security measures by replacing broken cameras and alarms," MENA quoted Mahmoud as saying. In a telephone interview with Al-Ahram Weekly Ashraf El-Ashmawi, the Ministry of Culture's legal consultant, blamed the theft on security lapses on the part of the private company contracted to safeguard the museum's priceless collection. "Even though only seven out of 43 surveillance cameras were functioning and none of the alarms attached to the museum's paintings were working, one has to wonder what the security personnel who are supposed to be present at all times were doing," he says. He told the Weekly that the robber had enough time to move a chair on which to stand while cutting the painting from its frame, remove the picture and then leave the museum without being intercepted. El-Ashmawi also stressed that the painting will be impossible to sell on the open market, especially since the Interpol is on the case now. Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni has also accused Shaalan of negligence. "I never imagined that it was possible to steal a painting from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum," Hosni told the Weekly. "The museum would have been closed if I had known the warning system was not working." Shaalan told the daily talk show Al-Qahera Al-Yom that he had informed the Ministry of Culture that there were security problems at the museum several times since 2007, notifying them that cameras and alarms were broken, but the ministry ignored his complaints until finally allocating LE40 million from the Cultural Development Fund (CDF) for the upgrading of museums that fall under the Fine Art Section. The museum, says Shaalan, is currently being restored. Initially, it was planned to close the museum to the public but this was not done owing to inadequate storage facilities. On the same programme Hosni contradicted Shaalan's version of events. He told Al-Qahera Al-Yom that Shaalan had initially asked the Ministry of Economic Development for money to upgrade security and not the Ministry of Culture. "I advised Shaalan to develop the Mahmoud Khalil Museum, which was officially inaugurated in 1995, and allocated funds from the CDF to this end," said Hosni. In a statement to Al-Yom Al-Sabei newspaper Shaalan accused both Hosni and his office manager, Farouk Abdel-Salam, of trying to make him into a scapegoat. "Abdel Salam goes every day to the general prosecution where he submits documents to put pressure on prosecutors to incriminate me in the theft and exclude Hosni from any criminal charges," Shaalan said. Hosni has instructed ministry officials to set up a central control room to monitor footage from surveillance cameras in all Egyptian museums and centralise the monitoring of alarm systems in a single office at the Citadel. Committees will also tour museums across the country to review security measures. "I feel like I am working alone," Hosni told the Weekly, adding that he was increasingly frustrated by "incompetent" employees. "I am tired and I can't sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night fearing for the artefacts in Egypt's museums," he said. In a statement on Tuesday, Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the culture minister authorises sector heads to develop their respective sectors, including buildings and cultural and art centres. He also said alarm systems in museums across the country would be upgraded and linked to a central control room monitored by the security forces. It is the second time that the Van Gogh painting has gone missing. In 1978 the painting was stolen only to be retrieved two years later from an undisclosed location in Kuwait. Its mysterious reappearance raised doubt about the authenticity of the canvas that was, until last week, on show at the museum, though according to former head of the Fine Arts Section Ahmed Nawar the painting had been verified by French and Spanish experts. Poppy Flowers is believed to have been painted in 1887, three years before Van Gogh's suicide. The Mahmoud Khalil Museum houses French paintings and objects, including sculpture, from the 19th century and includes works by Paul Gauguin, Gustave Courbet, François Millet, Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Adolphe Monticelli, Auguste Renoir and Auguste Rodin.
