United States returns to Cambodia 30 antiquities looted from historic sites

NEW YORK, Aug 8 (Reuters) – The USA will return to Cambodia 30 looted antiquities, together with bronze and stone statues of Buddhist and Hindu deities carved greater than 1,000 years in the past, U.S. officers stated on Monday.

The Southeast Asian nation’s archaeological websites -including Koh Ker, a capital of the traditional Khmer empire – suffered widespread looting in civil conflicts between the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Nineties. Cambodia’s authorities has since sought to repatriate stolen antiquities bought on the worldwide market.

Damian Williams, the highest federal prosecutor in Manhattan, stated the objects being returned have been bought to Western consumers by Douglas Latchford, a Bangkok seller who created pretend paperwork to hide that the objects had been looted and smuggled.

Williams stated the antiquities, together with a tenth century sandstone statue depicting the Hindu god of battle Skanda driving on a peacock, have been voluntarily relinquished by U.S. museums and personal collectors after his workplace filed civil forfeiture claims.

“These statues and artifacts … are of extraordinary cultural worth to the Cambodian folks,” Williams stated at a ceremony in Manhattan asserting the return of the antiquities.

U.S. prosecutors in 2019 charged Latchford, a twin citizen of Thailand and the US, with wire fraud and smuggling over the alleged looting. He died in Thailand in 2020.

The antiquities shall be displayed on the Nationwide Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s U.S. ambassador Keo Chhea informed Reuters on the ceremony.

In 2014, federal prosecutors returned the Duryodhana, a looted Tenth-century sandstone sculpture, to Cambodia after settling with public sale home Sotheby’s Inc, which had acquired it.

Final yr, the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace returned 27 looted antiquities to Cambodia.

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Enhancing by Richard Chang

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