Switzerland returns looted relics to Syrian authorities
Three rare artefacts that were looted from Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra and stored at the Geneva free port have been returned to Syrian authorities.
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سويسرا تُعيد قطعًا أثريّة منهوبة إلى السلطات السورية
The confiscated objects, from the second and third centuries BC, include a priest’s head and two funereal bas-reliefs featuring male and female portraits. They were handed over to officials at the Permanent Mission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations Office in Geneva last Thursday, it was reported on Tuesday.
This follows a request for restitution made by the Syrian authorities in September 2020.
The items from Syria, together with others from Yemen and Libya, had been confiscated by the Office of the Attorney General of Geneva in 2016. Most of the items had reportedly reached SwitzerlandExternal link via Qatar and were taken by looters.
The artefacts were stored at the Geneva free port by private individuals after arriving illegally in Switzerland between 2009-2010. They had been discovered during a routine inspection by Swiss customs in 2013. It is not clear when they were seized.
The pieces were then handed over to the Museum of Art and History in Geneva, where they were displayed temporarily in 2017 to raise awareness about the issue of looted cultural heritage. They were then stored in the museum ahead of their restitution.
The Syrian pieces came from Palmyra, a UNESCO world heritage site devastated by Islamic State jihadists who seized it in May 2015. The Islamists sent shock waves around the world as they systematically destroyed the central city’s monuments.
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Switzerland was once a hot destination for stolen cultural artefacts. But now it’s trying hard to secure the return of treasures.
It's working closely with the Italian authorities. The latest handover was in October: the Swiss gave the Italian embassy in Bern 27 objects of huge historic and artistic value. These included 26 Etruscan artefacts from a private collection and a 2,000-year-old marble bust, found at the Geneva free port.
The illicit trafficking of cultural artefacts is the world’s third-largest illegal market, after drugs and weapons. Countries such as Italy, which has a rich cultural heritage, have been working hard for decades to stop it.
As the Lugano lawyer and expert in art law Dario Jucker explains, stolen cultural property represents a vast illegal market.
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