[CPProt.net] French police on trail of smugglers of Jiroft artifacts

MSN CPPnet museum-security at museum-security.org
Wed Jun 1 06:37:01 CEST 2005


 
French police on trail of smugglers of Jiroft artifacts  

Monday, May 30, 2005 - C2005 IranMania.com 
 
LONDON, May 30 (IranMania) - In response to a request by Iran's Cultural
Heritage and Tourism Organization, the French police have begun searching
for the smugglers of several artifacts from the ancient Iranian site of
Jiroft which were recently scheduled to go on sale in Paris, the Persian
service of the Cultural Heritage News (CHN) agency reported. 

The sale of the items was stopped after Iranian cultural officials sued the
institution that had organized the sale. 
Meanwhile, the relevant documents proving Iranian ownership of the artifacts
have been submitted to a French court by Iranian officials, and the French
police are conducting an investigation to determine how the artifacts were
transferred to the country.

CHN did not state how many artifacts were involved. 

Iran's cultural heritage has been the target of smugglers for centuries.
Several other lawsuits have been filed by Iranian officials in courts in
Britain, Turkey, Belgium, and Pakistan for the return of smuggled artifacts
over the past few years. 
Iran recently sent an appeal to a Belgian court asking for the return of
nine boxes of smuggled ancient artifacts and a 2800-year-old pin stolen from
the exposition "7000 Years of Persian Art". 

In April, Iran also filed a legal complaint in a London court against the
owner of an Achaemenid era bas-relief, demanding its return. 

The artifact, along with a great collection of other historical and ancient
Iranian relics, was to be sold at Christie's at that time, but the
London-based auction house withdrew the Iranian artifact from the sale
pending judicial investigations. 
On March 7, some 118 ancient artifacts which had been smuggled to Britain
from Jiroft were returned to Iran. The items had been confiscated by customs
officials at London's Heathrow Airport last summer.
 
http://www.iranmania.com/




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