Head of monastery to have sold rare books from Czech National Museum

Police said on Wednesday the head of a monastery sold dozens of rare books that had been placed in his care by the National Museum in Prague. The old Cistercian monastery at Plasy, now state property, was used to store about 50 books from the museum collection, a police spokesman said. After removing the museum reference numbers, the monastery director allegedly sold them to two second-hand book dealers. The most valuable of the books was an 18th century atlas, valued at 31,500 euros, which was sold to an anonymous buyer and was not recovered.