Global News

Ottawa (AFP) – A Canadian man who stole the famed portrait of a scowling Winston Churchill in a brazen international art heist was sentenced to jail Monday, according to local media.

The "Roaring Lion" portrait of the late British prime minister had been gifted to the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa by the late Armenian-born Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh.

Taken by Karsh after the wartime leader addressed the Canadian parliament in 1941, Churchill's scowl becoming a symbol of British defiance in World War II.

In August 2022 hotel staff noticed the photograph, hanging in a reading room next to the main lobby, had been replaced with a forgery, and Ottawa police in 2024 announced they had found the culprit.

According to Canada's public broadcaster CBC, the man, Jeffrey Wood, pleaded guilty to forgery, theft, and trafficking property obtained by crime in March.

He was sentenced to jail for a duration of two years less a day on Monday at an Ottawa courthouse.

CBC reported that Justice Robert Wadden told Wood that he was guilty of stealing a "cultural and historical" portrait that was a "point of national pride."

In 2024, Ottawa police said that with the help of public tips and forensic sleuthing, they had found Wood living just west of Ottawa while the stolen portrait was in Italy.

The portrait had been sold through an auction house in London to a buyer in Italy, both of whom were unaware it was stolen, police said then.

It was returned to the hotel last September.

The image is arguably the most recognized of Churchill and widely circulated, even appearing on the British five pound note.

In an account posted on his official website, Karsh said making the portrait "changed my life."

He had captured Churchill's churlish expression immediately after plucking a cigar out of the British leader's mouth.

"By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me," Karsh said. "It was at that instant that I took the photograph."