A bronze statue of Melania Trump near her hometown in Slovenia has gone missing, five years after it replaced a wooden statue damaged by arsonists. Slovenian police told CNN that they’d been informed of a theft in the village of Rozno, where the statue was situated, on Tuesday. Officers “conducted an inspection of the crime scene and collected information,” police spokesperson Alenka Drenik Rangus said in a statement Friday. “The investigating judge and the district state prosecutor were informed about the theft.” No further details were given by authorities. Photos published in Slovenian local media show most of the statue has been sawed off, leaving just its feet and ankles attached to the tree trunk it stood on.

Police in Slovenia are investigating the disappearance of a bronze statue of U.S. first lady Melania Trump that was sawed off and carried away from her hometown. The life-size sculpture was unveiled in 2020 during President Donald Trump’s first term in office near Sevnica in central Slovenia, where Melanija Knavs was born in 1970. It replaced a wooden statue that had been set on fire earlier that year. Police spokeswoman Alenka Drenik Rangus said Friday that the police were informed about the theft of the statue on Tuesday. She said police were working to track down those responsible. According to Slovenian media reports, the bronze replica was sawed off at the ankles and removed.

A bronze statue of first lady Melania Trump has been stolen in her native Slovenia — after a brazen perp cut it off at the ankles. The towering sculpture, which was anchored to a tree stump in a field near Melania’s hometown of Sevnica, vanished on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported. Cops said the life-size statue had been cut off at the feet. “The theft was reported on 13 May and immediately police officers visited the crime scene and launched an investigation,” a police spokesperson said Thursday. The sculpture — created by American conceptual artist Brad Downey — had been erected after arsonists torched a wooden one resembling the first lady back in 2020. Downey said he was “a bit sad that it’s gone.” “My feeling is that it has something to do with the new election [of Donald Trump], but who knows, right?” the artist said.