A wooden statue ridiculing President Trump in first lady Melania Trump’s home country of Slovenia was burned down in an apparent act of arson.

The 26-foot-tall monument was erected last summer in the northeast portion of the country and featured Trump with his right arm raised in the air, fist clenched. The suspected arson occurred on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

The statue was designed with an internal mechanism that triggered the statue to open its mouth, revealing sharp teeth.



In this file photo dated Friday, Aug. 30, 2019, a wooden statue resembling Donald Trump near Kamnik, Slovenia. The wooden statue nearly eight-meter high (26 feet) of U.S. President Donald Trump that was constructed in 2019, has been destroyed by fire Thursday Jan. 9, 2020, in the homeland of his wife Melania Trump. (Darko Bandic/AP)



“Like all populists, the statue has two faces,” its creator, Tomaz Schlegl, said at the time of its unveiling. “One is humane and nice, the other is that of a vampire.”

Milan Balazic, the mayor of the village where the monument stood, said the burning of the statue "is a symbol of intolerance toward artistic projects in our society."

Another statue of a first family member made waves in Slovenia when a Melania Trump likeness was unveiled in her hometown of Sevnica. It features Melania Trump standing atop a large tree stump, waving and wearing the blue dress from her husband’s inauguration. The sculpture is very angular, with little attention given to her facial features.

