Antiques smuggler jailed

2004-04-30 07:20

Cairo - The ringleader of an Egyptian antiquities smuggling ring that shipped at least 300 pharaonic and other artefacts to Europe was sentenced on Thursday to 35 years in prison.

Twenty-five other members of the gang, including nine foreigners, were sentenced by the Cairo criminal court from one to 20 years in jail, although some were tried in absentia and are on the run.

The longest sentence was handed down to Tareq Suissi, a businessman and senior official with the National Democratic Party, who was arrested in April and expelled from the ruling party.

He was convicted of stealing, hiding and smuggling precious artefacts from the pharaonic, Islamic and Coptic Christian periods to Switzerland and France, as well as bribing officials and falsifying documents.

He was also convicted of possessing drugs and weapons and money laundering, and further fined several million Egyptian pounds.

Prosecutors had said stolen artefacts were found in Suissi's luxury villa in a Cairo suburb, which prompted a broader investigation.

Among the other defendants were a senior customs official who received 20 years in prison.

Eighteen others - including nine people from Swizterland, Germany, Kenya and Lebanon who were all tried in absentia - were each sentenced to 15 years. The other six received between one and 12 years.

Four of the Egyptians were also tried in absentia.

Among other Egyptians tried were customs officials, two police colonels and officials with the Supreme Council of Antiquities from the southern temple city region of Luxor.

The court acquitted five people.

Suissi and the others can appeal their verdicts.

Two mummies in a warehouse

Swiss authorities have informed Egypt they will return to Egypt some 300 artefacts, including statues, masks, and two mummies they found in a warehouse in the free zone at Geneva Airport, the prosecutor had said.

Among the seized objects were statues, masks, sarcophagi and mummies.

The smugglers had claimed they were exporting souvenirs from the internationally known tourist bazaar in Cairo's Khan al-Khalili neighborhood when they shipped the antiquities, the prosecutor said.

Egypt has launched a massive campaign for the return of its antiquities from Western museums in recent months, calling on Britain to agree to a three-month loan of the celebrated Rosetta stone and demands for Germany to relinquish a priceless bust of Queen Nefertiti.

- AFP