Mon Apr 9, 2012
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S.
prosecutors on Wednesday filed suit demanding auctioneer Sotheby’s
forfeit a 10th-century sandstone statue the government says was looted
from a Cambodian temple.
The statue, known as the Duryodhana, is believed to have been stolen
from the Prasat Chen temple at Koh Ker in Cambodia sometime in the 1960s
or 1970s, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet
Bharara said in a statement.
The Duryodhana “was looted from the country during a period of upheaval and unrest,”
Bharara said. “With today’s action, we are taking an important step
toward reuniting this ancient artifact with its rightful owners.”
If successful in the suit, the United States plans to return the statue to Cambodia.
Koh Ker was the capital of the Khmer empire in the first half of the
10th century, the civil complaint said. The remote jungle site, which
once housed a complex of temples, sanctuaries, a terraced pyramid-temple
and towers, is about 200 miles north of the Cambodian capital of Phnom
Penh.
The Duryodhana once stood on a pedestal near the entry to the western
pavilion of Prasat Chen, a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu.
The feet of the statue remain there today.
In 1975, a private collector in Belgium bought the Duryodhana from an
auction house in the United Kingdom, according to the government’s
court filing.
In March 2010 Sotheby’s agreed to sell the statue at
auction and imported it to the United States the next month, making
arrangements to sell the statue, despite knowing that it was stolen from
Koh Ker, Bharara said.
In March 2011, immediately before the planned auction, the Cambodian
government asked Sotheby’s to pull the statue from auction, Bharara
said. Sotheby’s withdrew the statue from the auction, but it remains in
its possession.
Sotheby’s disputed the government’s claims.
“This sculpture was legally imported into the United States and all
relevant facts were openly declared,” the company said in a statement. “We
have researched this sculpture extensively and have never seen nor been
presented with any evidence that specifies when the sculpture left
Cambodia over the last one thousand years nor is there any such evidence
in this complaint.“
“We have been in active discussions for a year with both the U.S. and
Cambodian governments, and we had assured them that we would
voluntarily maintain possession of this statue pending further
discussion,” the company said.
“Given that Cambodia has always expressed its desire to resolve this
situation amicably, and that we had an understanding with the U.S.
Attorney’s Office that no action would be filed pending further
discussion towards a resolution of this matter, we are disappointed that
this action has been filed and we intend to defend it vigorously.”
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Jackie Frank)
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