On Monday, the Egyptian Public Prosecution revealed the details of the recovery of 36 artifacts from Madrid, which had been smuggled there in 2014.
According to the official statement of the prosecution, this handover was “the fruit of effective judicial cooperation between the two countries, in order to preserve the Egyptian historical heritage.”
The statement added that the delivery “was in implementation of the UN resolution issued on the basis of the project submitted by the Egyptian Public Prosecution at the Conference of the States Parties to Combat Transnational Organized Crime in October 2020, in implementation of the Egyptian Public Prosecution’s plan to issue an international instrument to retrieve the looted Egyptian artifacts, within the framework of the Egyptian state’s strategy preserving its history and capabilities.”
The Public Prosecution revealed the scenes of the recovery procedures, after the delegation of the Egyptian Public Prosecution, accompanied by the Egyptian ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain, moved to the National Heritage Museum in Madrid, where the delegation met the director of the museum and a number of officials of the Spanish authorities.
The delegation of the Egyptian Prosecution inspected the seized antiquities, and compared them to the pictures sent by the Spanish authorities, previously examined by the Recovered Antiquities Department of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The delegation recovered the pieces after making sure that they matched the photos.
The delegation will supervise the procedures for packaging and shipping the recovered antiquities to Egypt, in preparation for handing them over to the officials of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities in Cairo.
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