Museum spokeswoman Patricia Wessels told the AFP news agency that police were alerted during the night when the alarm went off but that the thief, or thieves, had left the premises by the time police arrived.

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The thief opened the car doors when they were stationary or moving slowly, usually with the driver still inside.

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To his mind he was no more a thief of Nature than when, a country boy during the Depression, he had hooked 20-pound channel catfish, now long gone, out of the Chattahoochee River.

ECONOMIST: Ray Anderson

She sustained a leg injury when a thief snatched her handbag, throwing her onto a gravel path in the process.

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The thief grabbed the man from behind and searched him, but fled when he was was unable to find anything of value.

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But when the trial of Mr Suharto opened in Jakarta on August 31st he was accused of being a thief, not a killer.

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