THE HAGUE, 03/12/02 - Top pieces were stolen on Sunday night from a diamond exhibition in The Hague's Museon. The museum's director Bert Molsbergen had to reveal yesterday that a number of royal jewels had disappeared.

Molsbergen revealed in a press conference that "several millions of euros" worth of diamonds and jewellery had been stolen from the exhibition, which opened 5 October. He declined to give further information about the royal jewels. In any case, the Museon houses a piece of jewellery given by King William III to his bride and later Queen Emma in 1879.

According to Molsbergen, the robbers had concentrated exclusively on the most valuable pieces in the 'treasury, the central point of the exhibition. Six of the 28 cases had been cleaned out. Molsbergen could not yet give exact details of what was gone, but the loot apparently included necklaces, tiaras and earrings on loan from other museums and private persons.

Molsbergen said he could not understand how the thieves managed to steal the pieces. Cameras and security sensors guarded the exhibition 24 hours a day, but the two guards who were there at the time of the robbery saw nothing on the monitors, according to the director. The thieves broke a windowpane to get in.