A St Petersburg library head denounced for theft has dumbfounded his accusers by displaying over half the supposedly stolen books to local media.
City prosecutor Vladimir Yeremenko had alleged that Russian Academy of Science Library (BAN) director Valery Leonov was guilty of "abusing his high office for private ends" and of smuggling 54 rare books to France through an illegal transfer.
Last week Leonov struck back at Mr Yeremenko, displaying 32 of the 54 allegedly missing volumes and saying that the rest of the tomes are already on their way back to the BAN library from France.
Despite the revelations, the city prosecutor is sticking to his guns and has laid fresh charges against Leonov.
The day after Leonov's dramatic television appearance, Mr Yeremenko dropped the original suit and arraigned the BAN chief for smuggling and fraud.
The original charges were laid after two inspections of the BAN library chief's offices convinced detectives that Leonov had illegaly arranged the transfer of the 18th and 19th century books three years ago.
Leonov was first accused just two days before four books from the rare 19th century "Birds of America" series, worth over $1 million, were removed from the National Public Library on Ploshchad Ostrovskovo.
St Petersburg police special department 12, which deals with crimes against state-owned art galleries, libraries and museums, has made little progress in their search for the perpetrators of a theft that had all the hallmarks of an inside job.
The four books were removed from their covers page by page and smuggled out past the unsuspecting security officers guarding the high-security, restricted-access section.