A Dutch appeals court delivers its verdict on Tuesday October 26 on the fate of a collection of invaluable archaeological treasures on loan from Crimea to a museum in Amsterdam shortly before Moscow's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.
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Four Crimean museums launched a joint legal action in November 2014 to force the Allard Pierson Museum to return the works, loaned for the exhibition "Crimea: Gold and secrets of the Black Sea". But in 2016, a Dutch court ruled that these archaeological treasures should be returned to Ukraine, clarifying that Crimea was not considered an autonomous state. Crimean museums appealed against the judgment, arguing that the gold belonged to the region. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal said in 2019 that it needed more time to rule.
Pending the verdict, the treasures are kept in a
“safe place”
by the Archaeological Museum of the University of Amsterdam, Allard Pierson.
"We do not comment on this as long as the case is ongoing,"
Yasha Lange, spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam, told AFP.
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Crimea was annexed by Russia in March 2014 after a military intervention followed by a referendum denounced as illegal by Kiev and the West. The peninsula was at the crossroads of ancient trade routes. The rich collection of objects dating from the second century AD until the early Middle Ages was on loan to the Amsterdam Museum less than a month before the annexation of Crimea.
Torn between Ukraine and Crimea, which both demanded the return of the objects, the Allard Pierson museum was caught
"between a rock and a hard place,"
the Dutch court ruled in 2016. His judgment had provoked the anger of Moscow and the joy of Petro Poroshenko, then President of Ukraine.
According to him, the decision meant that
“not only is Scythian gold Ukrainian, but also Crimea is Ukrainian”
.
Read also In search of the forgotten soldiers of the Crimean War
It is now up to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to decide. Since the case does not appear to be covered by Dutch, European or UNESCO World Heritage laws,
"it is now a question of deciding who has the strongest rights
,
"
said the court.
"We are confident"
that the decision on
"the return of Scythian gold to Ukraine"
will be confirmed, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Eminé Djaparova said in September.
But the Crimea has not lost hope, the Minister of Culture of the peninsula, Arina Novoselskaya, told the official Russian news agency TASS in early October.
Dutch justice
"is dragging out"
the trial, because
"few judges would like to take responsibility"
for delivering a final decision in this case, said Andreï Malguine, director of the Tavrida museum in Simferopol, one of the four establishments in Crimea for initiating the legal action.
“This question is very complicated.
We would of course like our collection to be back in his house, ”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in September.