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Dear Nicholas I have contacted the Iraqi department of antiquities concerning this matter. They have told me that nearly 4000 registered items have been stolen from museums during 1991-. They have published a complete catalogue of all the items and have distributed to world museums. They did confirm that some stolen articles were found in the UK. They stated that they have tried for something like seven years to get them back to Iraq but the UK government cited the sanctions and 661 committee as a pretext. Similar cases are happening in the US. It looks like the " civilized west" sanctions are robbing the people of Iraq of the present, the future and now the past! Best regards Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar Baghdad, Iraq ----- Original Message ----- From: "J.N. Postgate" <jnp10@hermes.cam.ac.uk> To: <soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 6:25 PM Subject: Iraqi antiquities > I wonder if any list member would be interested in the following, or even > be able to suggest whether representations might help, and if so to whom > they should be directed. > > Last year the Iraq Interests Section in London took delivery of two stone > sculptures which had been looted from archaeological sites in northern > Iraq. One of these was a fragment of bas-relief from the palace of > Sennacherib at Nineveh. It had been purchased by a collector and was > handed back to the Iraqi authorities after a private agreement between the > two sides. The other was the head of a Medusa from the Parthian city of > Hatra, and had been seized from a London dealer by Scotland Yard after it > had been identified as looted from the site by an Italian archaeologist. > > The Iraqi Interests Section now wishes to repatriate these two pieces, but > their application to do this has been referred by the UK government to the > Sanctions Committee in New York (where presumably it will go to the bottom > of a very large pile). > > Any comment? > > Nicholas Postgate > Trinity College > Cambridge CB2 1TQ > jnp10@cam.ac.uk > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq > For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk > CASI's website - www.casi.org.uk - includes an archive of all postings. > > -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk CASI's website - www.casi.org.uk - includes an archive of all postings.