New York court returns 16 stolen works of art to Egypt
[ad_1]
The New York justice returned to theEgyptWednesday, September 7, sixteen looted works of art, five of which had been seized in the spring at the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York, as part of an investigation into international trafficking involving the former boss of the Louvre .
Following a ceremony with Egyptian Consul General Howaida Essam Mohamed, New York State Attorney for Manhattan Alvin Bragg announced the restitution to the “Egyptian people” of sixteen antiquities worth “more than 4 million dollars”. The day before, in a similar ceremony, 58 works of art had been returned to Italy. “Today’s restitution shows the extent of antiquities trafficking networks”denounced the prosecutor Bragg, saying to refuse that “merchants and traffickers use our district [de Manhattan] to profit from stolen works of art”.
Nine of the pieces were in the possession of Michael Steinhardt, “one of the greatest collectors of ancient art in the world”, detailed the prosecutor. The American octogenarian was forced in 2021 by justice to return around 180 antiques stolen in recent decades, for a total value of 70 million dollars. This agreement allowed him to escape an indictment, but it prohibits him for life from acquiring works on the legal art market.
The former director of the Louvre indicted
Five other pieces had been seized in May and June in one of the largest museums on the planet, the Met, for a value of 3.1 million dollars, as part of an investigation between New York and Paris for which former Louvre president Jean-Luc Martinez has been charged in France. These five antiquities from the “Dib-Simonian trafficking network had been looted from archaeological sites in Egypt, smuggled from Germany or the Netherlands to France and sold to the Met by the Parisian company Pierre Bergé & Associés”according to prosecutor Bragg.
The Manhattan floor has “shared information with investigators around the world, leading to the indictment or arrest of nine people in France, including former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez”. Mr. Martinez, who disputes the facts, is accused by French justice of having turned a blind eye to the false certificates of origin of Egyptian coins and has been indicted for “complicity in fraud in an organized gang and laundering by facilitation misrepresentation of the origin of property derived from a crime or misdemeanor”.
The Parisian investigation seeks to establish whether, among hundreds of pieces looted during the “Arab Spring” in 2011, some were acquired by the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
To not miss any African news, Subscribe to the newsletter from “World Africa” from this link. Every Saturday at 6 a.m., find a week of news and debates covered by the editorial staff of the “World Africa”.
[ad_2]
Source link
