University boss issues statement as man, 25, arrested after protesters steal statues

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The President and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Manchester has issued a statement after police investigating the theft of two statues made an arrest.

A 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of aggravated burglary yesterday morning (Friday). It came after two hooded protesters smashed into a cabinet in the university's Chemistry Building on the Oxford Road campus earlier this month.

The protesters then appeared to grab the statues from inside the cabinet. Activist group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the incident, sharing a clip of the incident on X. READ MORE: Twisted metal, broken glass, and the 'loudest bang ever' as chaos descends on Rochdale Road The group said the sculptures were of Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president, who had earlier been an academic at the university.

But while one of the two sculptures is of Mr Weizmann, the second is of Harold Baily Dixon, a former professor of chemistry at the University of Manchester.