Stolen Banksy artwork honouring Bataclan victims found in Italy

Italian authorities have recovered a stolen artwork by Banksy that was painted as a tribute to the victims of the 2015 terror attack at the Bataclan music hall in Paris.

Authorities in the city of L’Aquila displayed the recovered artwork at a news conference.

The piece – a black image appearing to depict a person mourning – had been painted on one of the Bataclan’s emergency exit doors.

Ninety people were killed at the Bataclan on November 13 2015, when Islamic extremists invaded the music hall, one of several targets that night in which a total of 130 people died.

Prosecutors in L’Aquila said the work was recovered during a search of a home in Tortoreto, a city near the Adriatic coast in the Abruzzo region’s Teramo province.

They said it had been “hidden well” in the attic.

Authorities said they were still investigating how the artwork arrived in Italy and the role of the Italians involved.

The discovery was made as part of a joint Italian-French police investigation.