Five men have been convicted over the theft of 18th-century jewels worth more than 100m euros from a German museum

In November 2019, 21 pieces of jewellery including more than 4,300 diamonds were stolen from the Green Vault Museum in Dresden.

The pieces had a total insured value of at least 113.8m euros (£98.9m).

On Tuesday, Dresden state court ruled the defendants, aged between 24 and 29, were responsible for the break-in at the historic building and the robbery.

The defendants were convicted of particularly aggravated arson in combination with dangerous bodily injury, theft with weapons, damage to property and intentional arson.

They were handed prison sentences of between four years and four months, and six years and three months, according to German news agency dpa. One defendant was acquitted.

The court heard how the robbers laid a fire just before the break-in to cut the power supply to street lights outside the museum, and also set fire to a car in a nearby garage before fleeing to Berlin.

They were caught during raids in Berlin several months after the robbery.

In January, a plea bargain was made between the defence, prosecution and court after the majority of the stolen jewels were returned.

The fifth defendant also confessed – but only to the procurement of objects such as the axes used to make holes in the museum display case, according to dpa.

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The Green Vault in Dresden is one of the world’s oldest museums after being established in 1723.

It holds the treasury of Augustus the Strong of Saxony, comprising around 4,000 objects of gold, precious stones and other materials.

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