OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — A stolen portrait of Winston Churchill that was swapped with a forgery during the pandemic has returned to its rightful place, after two Ottawa police detectives traveled to Rome to retrieve it.
Police said ”The Roaring Lion" was stolen from the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa, sometime between Christmas Day 2021 and Jan. 6, 2022, and replaced with a forgery. The swap was only uncovered months later, in August, when a hotel worker noticed the frame wasn't hung properly and looked different than the others.
Genevieve Dumas, the hotel’s general manager, unveiled the portrait in a ceremony on Friday.
“I can tell you that it is armed, locked, secured,” Dumas said.
“It’s not moving,” she said, adding that staff accidentally triggered the alarm on Thursday, while they hung it up, “and I’m sure they heard it on Parliament Hill.”
The most famous depiction of Churchill, known as “The Roaring Lion,” appears on the U.K.’s five-pound banknote and shows a glowering wartime prime minister staring into the camera.
Renowned photographer Yousuf Karsh snapped the iconic portrait in 1941 in the Speaker’s office just after Churchill delivered a rousing wartime address to Canadian lawmakers.
Toward the end of his life, Karsh signed and gifted the portrait to the hotel, where he had lived and worked.
The portrait had been sold through an auction house in London to a private buyer, and both seller and buyer were unaware that it had been stolen, police said.
Police have now charged a man from the town of Powassan, Ontario, with forgery, theft and trafficking. That case is before the courts.
The portrait’s return was a widely anticipated event, with a ceremony held in a room packed with attendees including Ottawa's mayor.
Nicola Cassinelli, a lawyer in Genoa who bought the stolen artwork, sent a message.
“The magnificent photograph by Yousuf Karsh captures in the eyes of Sir Winston Churchill the pride, the anger and the strength of the free world. And it represents, better than any other, the desire for the triumph of good over evil.”
And despite the “extraordinary privilege” of having the portrait hang in his home, “The Roaring Lion,” he said, belongs to the public.
Guests invited to an unveiling ceremony take their photo in front of The Roaring Lion, a 1941 portrait of Winston Churchill taken by Yousuf Karsh, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024 at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa, Ontario. The portrait was unveiled after being stolen and returned. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
Yousuf Karsh's 1941 portrait of Winston Churchill, which he gifted to the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, is seen after being unveiled at the hotel following its theft and return, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024 in Ottawa, Ontario. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — Belize issued tropical storm warnings for the Central American country's coast on Friday as Tropical Storm Sara stalled in the western Caribbean, dousing Honduras' northern coast with heavy rain.
Sustained rain fell overnight in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, with no immediate sign of serious flooding.
Sara was forecast to drop 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters) of rain, with up to 30 inches in isolated areas of northern Honduras. The heavy rain could lead to life-threatening flooding and landslides, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
The weather system made landfall late Thursday about 105 miles (165 kilometers) west-northwest of Cabo Gracias a Dios, on the Honduras-Nicaragua border, the center reported. That is near Brus Laguna, a village of about 13,000 inhabitants. There are few other areas of population nearby.
In November 2020, Eta and Iota passed through Honduras after initially making landfall in Nicaragua as powerful Category 4 hurricanes. Northern Honduras caught the worst of the storms with torrential rains that set off flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands. Eta alone was responsible for as much as 30 inches of rain along the northern coast.
Sara moved back out into the Caribbean overnight and by Friday morning was located just south of the island of Roatan, a small-scale tourism destination.
In its latest update, the hurricane center said the storm was located about 170 miles (270 kilometers) southeast of Belize City and was moving west at 2 mph (4 kph), with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph).
Sara was expected to continue to slow and then possibly strengthen slightly, but remain roughly on that path and threaten Belize's coast over the weekend.
It is then expected to turn northwesterly towards Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, though forecasters said it probably won't reemerge into the Gulf after crossing the Yucatan.
“What remains of the system when it emerges into the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico is not very favorable for redevelopment,” according to the hurricane center.
Mexican authorities warned that it could cause “intense rains” over the resort-studded Yucatan Peninsula.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
A bridge stand over the Chamelecón river during rains brought on by tropical storm Sara in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
A man walks to his work place during rains brought on by tropical storm Sara in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Motorcyclists cover themselves with plastic sheets during rains brought on by tropical storm Sara in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
People cross a pedestrian bridge during rains brought on by tropical storm Sara in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
A man rides his bicycle during rains brought on by Tropical Storm Sara in La Lima, Honduras, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Storm clouds descend over the Francisco Morazan stadium during rains brought on by Tropical Storm Sara in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Storm clouds descend over the Francisco Morazan stadium during rains brought on by Tropical Storm Sara in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
A motorcyclist rides on a street flooded by rains brought on by Tropical Storm Sara in La Lima, Honduras, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
This GOES-East GeoGolor satellite image taken Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, at 1:03 p.m. EST and provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), shows Tropical Storm Sara. (CIRA/NOAA via AP)
