The court punished the former director of the Litoměřice museum with a suspended sentence

Litoměřice – The Litoměřice District Court today sentenced the former director of the local museum for violation of duties in the management of чужí property to a three-year suspended sentence with a probationary period of five years. Eva Štíbrová was facing up to eight years in prison. Over 10,000 items worth nearly 16 million crowns have gone missing from the museum's collections. The court ordered Štíbrová, who denied the charges, to compensate for the resulting damage. The verdict is not final; both the prosecutors and the defendant have taken time to consider.

Štíbrová served as the museum's director for 38 years until 2012 when she retired. The new director, Tomáš Wiesner, conducted an extensive inventory of the collections, during which it was discovered that many items were missing, many of which had historical value that is often incalculable. Among the rarest items is a Latin Gradual from the 15th century, which later reappeared in the Austrian National Library, and a unique Hussite chalice.

The Gradual belonged to the collections of the regional archive, and the museum had borrowed it long-term. Štíbrová must pay the archive 900,000 crowns and nearly 15 million crowns to the Ústí Region, which is the museum's founder.

The inventory took three years, and Wiesner turned to the police due to the missing items. "Basically, there is everything that is traded. What was worth something has disappeared. It was a fundamental disruption of the entire collection. Among the items are glass, tin, porcelain, weapons, military artifacts from World War II, numismatics," Wiesner said earlier. According to the indictment, there was also a substitution of valuable collection items with less valuable ones, questionable write-offs, and losses.

Štíbrová defended herself by saying that the spaces available to the museum did not allow for an inventory to be conducted. The museum's depository was located in the castle of Ploskovice and in the local cultural center. However, according to the court, its protection was not secured. Items went missing from the depository as well as from the museum building in Litoměřice. Museum staff repeatedly warned the director about the missing items, to which she responded that they would be found. Larger items, such as sculptures, also went missing.

According to the court, Štíbrová did not ensure the protection of collection items against theft and burglary, as she did not establish a key regime, and the keys to the depositories were freely accessible, even to unauthorized persons.

The museum's collections consisted of items gathered from closed German schools, museums, and monuments in the 1950s. The condition of the collections was poor; many items were affected by mold. "It cannot be definitively determined the damage of the missing items, and it is a question of whether those items were ever there," stated the defense attorney, Lenka Mrázková. The judge stated today that witnesses confirmed the presence of many items in the collections. "Then during the move, they were no longer there. Many items were historically examined, loaned for exhibitions; this defense is not accepted by the court," Judge Alexandra Šetková said. The conditions in the depositories, according to the court, allowed for an inventory to be conducted. "For several years, there was no work done with the collection," she said.

According to the court, the moving process was also not in order. It gradually became clear what was missing. Štíbrová did nothing about it. The public prosecutor said he was satisfied with the verdict, which the court agreed with. Štíbrová did not comment on the verdict.