American justice returned Monday August 8 to Cambodia 30 Khmer works of art stolen near the famous temples of Angkor and which had been the subject of international traffic to the United States.
It was Manhattan federal prosecutor Damian Williams, head of the country's largest prosecutor's office, who officially handed over the stolen antiquities to Cambodia's ambassador to the United States, Keo Chhea, in front of the press.
"
We celebrate on this day the return of Cambodia's cultural heritage to the Cambodian people and reaffirm our commitment to reduce the illicit trafficking of works of art and antiquities
", launched the magistrate.
Among these 30 pieces, a sculpture from the 10th century of the Hindu deity "
Skanda mounted on a peacock
" and another from the same period of the god Ganesh.
The two had been stolen from Koh Ker, an ancient Khmer capital, 80 km from the temples of Angkor, according to American federal justice.
These 30 works - spanning from the Bronze Age to the 12th century - had been stolen, like thousands of others, at the end of the 20th century during the wars in Cambodia in the 1970s, followed by the reopening country in the 1990s.
International traffic
Federal justice recalls that thousands of Khmer statues, sculptures and lintels were trafficked for decades from Cambodia to antique dealers in Bangkok, Thailand, before being illegally exported for collectors, businessmen, even museums in Asia, Europe and the United States.
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One of these dealers, the Briton Douglas Latchford, was charged in 2019 in the United States with trafficking in works of art, but his death extinguished the legal action.
Justice in New York State has embarked on a vast restitution of works: from the summer of 2020 to the end of 2021, at least 700 pieces have been returned to 14 countries, including Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Greece or Italy.
The American collector Michael Steinhardt was thus forced to return in 2021 around 180 antiques stolen in recent decades, with a total value of 70 million dollars.
This agreement between justice and Mr. Steinhardt, 80, allowed him to escape an indictment but prohibits him for life from acquiring works on the legal art market.
Angkor, the largest archaeological site in the world (400 km2), was the capital of the Khmer Empire (from the 9th to the 14th century).
Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992, this gem has reopened to tourists after two years of pandemic.
