MONTENEGRO.- Three people were charged in Montenegro with illegal possession of a stolen painting by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya. They were accused of trying to sell the work. Crime prosecutor Stojanka Radovic said the three persons charged are Dejan Mugosa, Goran Mugosa and Arsenije Kalezic. They could not be charged of stealing the work because of lack of evidence. If convicted they could be convicted from five to ten years in prison.

The work of art is titled Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, and portrays Count Ugolino, also known as the Cannibal Count, with two boys. Ugolino was portrayed in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, imprisoned in the Tower of Pisa in 1289, starving and compelled to eat the flesh of his deceased sons and grandsons. The painting was first purchsed as an anonymous work from a private collector in 1999 for $250 US, but it was later attributed to Goya by experts and was insured for more than $500,000 US. The painting was stolen in Turin, Italy, in 2001 from the Torino-Esposizione gallery. The work is the size of a sheet of letter paper.