Ammon News - A Canadian man who stole the famed portrait of a scowling Winston Churchill in a brazen international art heist was sentenced to jail Monday, according to local media.

The "Roaring Lion" portrait of the late British prime minister had been gifted to the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa by the late Armenian-born Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh.

Taken by Karsh after the wartime leader addressed the Canadian parliament in 1941, Churchill's scowl became a symbol of British defiance in World War II.

In August 2022, hotel staff noticed the photograph, hanging in a reading room next to the main lobby, had been replaced with a forgery, and Ottawa police in 2024 announced they had found the culprit.

According to Canada's public broadcaster CBC, the man, Jeffrey Wood, pleaded guilty to forgery, theft, and trafficking property obtained by crime in March.

He was sentenced to jail for a duration of two years less a day on Monday at an Ottawa courthouse.