Swiss police find paintings stolen in Zurich art heist

GENEVA, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Swiss police have recovered two paintings stolen from a Zurich museum by armed robbers over a week ago in Switzerland's biggest theft, the official Swissinfo news website reported on Tuesday.

The two Impressionist paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet were found in an abandoned car parked at a psychiatric clinic on Monday afternoon.

They were among four artworks valued at 180 million Swiss francs (163 million U.S. dollars) that were stolen from the private Buhrle museum.

Museum director Lukas Gloor, who formally identified the paintings, told a news conference on Tuesday that he was relieved.

"The injury we suffered on Feb. 10 has partially been healed," he said. "Both paintings are still in perfect condition, and still look the way they were painted."

Police described the heist last week as the biggest ever robbery committed in Switzerland and almost certainly the biggest in Europe.

The three masked men who entered the museum with pistols are still at large.