The trial of a smuggler of looted Egyptian antiquities is currently ongoing in the USA. Once again, it is great to see real action being taken in such cases, but it serves to highlight the oddity of how artefacts taken using similar means, not that many years ago, are legitimately on display in many museums, with little fear of any sort of legal comeback.
You can read a more in-depth analysis of this case here [1].
From:
Independent Online [2]
SA Time: 25 April 2012 15:01:30
Dealer admits smuggling Egyptian treasures
April 19 2012 at 12:21pmNew York – An antiques dealer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to smuggling ancient Egyptian treasures, including a coffin, to the United States.
Mousa Khouli, also known as Morris Khouli, aged 38, faces up to 20 years of prison for “smuggling Egyptian cultural property into the United States and making a false statement to law enforcement authorities,” the federal prosecutor’s office in New York said.
Khouli arranged for the purchase and smuggling of a Greco-Roman style Egyptian coffin, a three-part nesting coffin set, a set of Egyptian funerary boats, and Egyptian limestone figures between October 2008 and November 2009, officials said.The antiquities were exported from Dubai into the United States with false documentation.
Khouli also settled a civil complaint seeking forfeiture of Egyptian and Iraqi artifacts, prosecutors said. – Sapa-AFP