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Iraqi antiquity seized at U.S. airport
By Terry Frieden
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- At least one piece from a looted Iraqi museum has been seized at a U.S. airport, an FBI official said Monday. Customs agents discovered the item, officials said. They did not name the airport or provide any other details. The Bureau of Customs and Immigration Enforcement indicated that no one has been arrested, but declined any comment on what was described as "an ongoing investigation." The FBI said it has begun working with Interpol and other international law enforcement agencies, as well as museum curators and experts in the United States, to try to locate antiquities stolen from the unnamed museum in Baghdad. Interpol, based in Lyon, France, announced last week that it had told its 181 member countries to make border guards, customs authorities, art dealers, auction houses and the wider public aware of the situation. "Interpol is calling on organizations and institutions involved in conservation and trade of antiquities to categorically decline any offers of cultural property originating from Iraq," said Karl-Heinz Kind, the agency's specialist in the theft of art and antiquities. "In case of doubts concerning the origin of certain items, these bodies should immediately contact Interpol and seek expert evaluation of what is being offered for sale." The FBI's Criminal Investigative Division includes an Art Theft Program, which works with museums to find stolen art and artifacts. The FBI plans to send a team of agents to Baghdad to try to collect information and documentation to help in the search for Iraqi antiquities, officials said. The FBI said agents already in Kuwait will be the first to help search for items from the museum, but said that responsibility "will be folded into their overall mission" until experts arrive on the scene. Although sources did not name the museum linked to the seized item, the renowned National Museum of Iraq, in Baghdad, was looted of priceless rare, ancient artifacts in the days after Baghdad's fall April 9. Last week, a panel of antiquities experts said it suspected some of the looting of Iraqi museums had been "commissioned" by collectors who had anticipated the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. The panel of 30 scholars and experts on Iraqi antiquities met at the headquarters for the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in Paris, France. The group said there were two kinds of looting in Iraq: simple vandalism and organized thefts. Although the panel members said they had no proof, they suspected that some of the looting was "commissioned theft," in which collectors arranged for precious items to be stolen for a fee. They noted that thieves had keys to vaults inside the museum. Much of the looted treasures could surface in London, England, one of the world's largest centers for trade in Islamic art, said Dick Ellis, an expert in recovering stolen art. "The first thing to do is to assess what has been stolen and create a circular of the key objects, and get it into the marketplace to close down the market," he said. U.N. officials say they warned the United States government several months before the war that the museum and other cultural institutions were at risk. The U.S. has also been widely criticized for having taken steps to protect Iraqi oil fields but failing to take similar steps to protect the museum. The chairman of a committee that advises the White House on protecting antiquities around the world has resigned over what he says is the United States' failure to stop the looting. (Full Story)
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