The trial in Italy of Robert Hecht, the art dealer suspected of selling many looted artefacts, has ended without verdict. The reasons for this result were similar to those that ended the trial of former Getty curator Marion True in 2010.

From:
Los Angeles Times

Italian case against antiquities dealer ends
January 19, 2012

The trial of Robert E. Hecht Jr., the alleged mastermind of an international black market in ancient art, ended with no verdict this week when a three-judge panel in Rome found the time allotted for the trial had expired.

Hecht, a 92-year-old Baltimore native now confined to bed at his home in Paris, has cut a wide swath through the art world since the 1950s, supplying museums and collectors around the world with some of the finest examples of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan art.
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Another review of Chasing Aphrodite – about the Italian’s hunt for looted artefacts in the Getty Museum.

From:
Washington Times

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Chasing Aphrodite’
CHASING APHRODITE: THE HUNT FOR LOOTED ANTIQUITIES AT THE WORLD’S RICHEST MUSEUM
By Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28 384 pages, illustrated

The 19th century was the golden age of acquisition. European and American collectors, smitten with the lure of antiquities from Greece, Italy and China, spent recklessly to assemble great collections in London, Paris and New York. No one questioned that marbles from the Parthenon would get more careful attention in London than in Athens.

Then the tide began to turn. Italians became restless at the sight of their “patrimony” being exported abroad. In 1939, Italy passed a cultural property law stating that archaeological objects found after that date were the property of the state. In Athens, Greeks demanded the return of the Elgin Marbles.
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The Trial (without result) of former Getty curator Marion True has been covered here many times before. The book “Chasing Aphrodite” aims to retell some of this story, as well as the background to it.

From:
New York Review of Books

What Went Wrong at the Getty
June 23, 2011
Hugh Eakin

Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum
by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 375 pp., $28.00

1.

On August 5, 70 BC, at 1:30 in the afternoon, a remarkable criminal trial began in Rome. A young prosecutor named Marcus Tullius Cicero was accusing a senior Roman political official, Gaius Verres, of extortion and misrule during Verres’s tenure as governor of Sicily. “For three long years he so thoroughly despoiled and pillaged the province that its restoration to its previous state is out of the question,” Cicero proclaimed in his bold opening statement.
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The long running trial of former Getty Curator Marion True has continued on & off for a number of years. It has now come to an end – not because any verdict has been reached, but because of the statute of limitations on the laws under which she was being tried brought an automatic end to the proceedings.

So, we are none the wiser about whether or not the trial would have been successful for Italy in securing a conviction (or securing the return of artefacts). Now that the legal action is over & people are able to speak more freely though, hopefully more details of the case will be revealed.

From:
New York Times

Rome Trial of Ex-Getty Curator Ends
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: October 13, 2010

ROME — The case against Marion True, the former curator of antiquities at the J.Paul Getty Museum, ended abruptly on Wednesday, after a court here ruled that the statute of limitations on her alleged crimes — receiving artifacts stolen from Italy and conspiring to deal in them — had expired.

The trial had dragged on intermittently for five years. Numerous witnesses testified for the prosecution, which argued that Ms. True knowingly bought ancient artifacts of dubious provenance for the collection of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The trial was widely believed to be the first instance of a museum curator facing criminal charges for such alleged crimes.
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For many years, Museums sat comfortably in the knowledge that despite turning a blind eye to the looted antiquities in their collections, the law was on their side & successful prosecutions were rare, even in relatively clear cut cases. In the past three or four years though, a constantly evolving situation has begun to shift far more rapidly.

So far, Italy has taken the lead role in spearheading the wave of restitutions, but other countries are carefully watching & learning.

From:
Cleveland.com

Analysis: Museums often pay the price for looted antiquities
by Steven Litt/Plain Dealer Art Critic
Sunday November 23, 2008, 6:30 AM

On Sept. 13, 1995, Swiss and Italian police raided a suite of offices in a warehouse on the southwest side of Geneva rented by Italian antiquities dealer Giacomo de Medici.

Behind the gray metal door of Room 23, on Corridor 17, they found shelves packed with looted vases, statues, bronzes, frescoes, mosaics and jewelry.
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Maurizio Fiorilli has in recent years been no stranger to restitution cases in his work for the Italian Government. Here he talks about some of the issues he is dealing with, as well as the way that the problems of looting are exacerbated by the policies of many of the museums that receive the stolen artefacts.

From:
Sunday Telegraph

Maurizio Fiorilli: scourge of the tomb raiders
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 10/08/2008

Bad news for the art thieves who for years have been selling Italy’s ancient treasures to foreign museums: ‘Il Bulldog’ is on your case. Alastair Smart meets the resolute attorney demanding their return

Pasquale Camera didn’t do light lunches. After a third plate of veal Napolitano, washed down by his nth glass of Barolo, the 25-stone ex-police captain galumphed his way out of a Naples restaurant, climbed into his Renault 21, and set off north for Rome. The August heat was intense, and just a few miles up the motorway, he fell asleep at the wheel, smashed into the guardrail and overturned his car. He died instantly.
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