Embassy calls time on mystery of Bush's missing watch

The people of Albania so revere George Bush that they prepared for his recent visit by awarding him the country's highest medal, renaming a street, giving him honorary citizenship and mobbing him on arrival. And then one, it seems, stole his watch.

Video footage has emerged showing the President on a recent visit amid a rapturous crowd, gleefully shaking hands with surely one of the most enthusiastic foreign audiences he had met in some time, during which his watch mysteriously disappears from his left arm.

Villagers were said to have lined the streets to shake hands with the President during the visit on Sunday, the first by a US President to the country. Some grabbed him by the arms and wrists, others reached out to hug him, some even ruffled his hair. Mr Bush, delighted by the attention and still wearing his watch, a Timex designed for him and bearing his name, plunged into the crowd. Seconds later the watch was gone.

It was unclear yesterday if it had been stolen or fallen off, or whether Mr Bush had taken it off as a precautionary measure before mingling with the crowds in the farming village of Fushe Kruje, north of the capital, Tirana.

Local media reported it as having been stolen, but embassy officials denied the claim. "What the local media is saying is absolutely not true," an unnamed US embassy official said.

A White House spokesman, Tony Snow, insisted that Mr Bush had put the watch into his pocket for safe keeping. "The President put it in his pocket and it returned safely home", he said.

An Albanian bodyguard accompanying Mr Bush said he had seen one of his American colleagues, standing near to Mr Bush, bend down and pick up the watch.

The television channel Top Channel meanwhile showed how one of the President's bodyguards may have talked to him, before taking the watch from his hand.

Among the Albanian honorifics, three stamps bearing Mr Bush's image were also issued, along with one of New York's Statue of Liberty.

The President's visit was part of tour of Europe which took in a total of six countries, and was considered among his most successful.