Statue of Melania Trump sawed off at the ankles and stolen in her home country of Slovenia

A bronze statue of First Lady Melania Trump has reportedly gone missing successful her location state of Slovenia, five years aft it replaced a woody statue that was burned.

The statue, a life-sized likeness that perched atop a histrion stump, was unveiled successful 2020 successful the colony of Rozno adjacent Sevnica, the tiny municipality successful which Melania was calved arsenic Melanija Knavs, according to section Slovenian media reports. The abstract metallic portion replaced a woody statue that much intelligibly resembled the First Lady successful a airy bluish formal akin to the 1 she wore to Donald Trump's archetypal inauguration.

The original, carved by section creator Aleš Župevc, was acceptable ablaze and severely burned successful July 2020, aft which it was sent to an creation depository elsewhere successful Slovenia.

Pictures of the stump wherever the bronze statue erstwhile stood shared successful section media showed conscionable the feet remaining. The remainder of the installment was seemingly taken aft it was sawed disconnected from its basal astatine the ankles.

Police spokesperson Alenka Drenik Rangus told quality outlets, including AP, CNN and The Guardian, that the theft was primitively reported connected May 13 and is nether investigation. One of the statue's creators, American conceptual creator Brad Downey, told AFP that helium was "a spot bittersweet that it's gone," adding, "My feeling [is] that it has thing to bash with the caller predetermination [of Donald Trump], but who knows."

USA TODAY reached retired to Slovenian police, Brad Downey and the White House for comment.

This nonfiction primitively appeared connected USA TODAY: Bronze statue of Melania Trump chopped disconnected astatine ankles, stolen from Slovenia