Walk of Truth, the Hague-based tracker of stolen art and cultural artefacts, announced on Monday that it was “appalled” by the Munich Higher Regional Court ruling ordering the return of ancient artefacts looted from the occupied part of Cyprus to the Munich dealer Aydin Dikmen, known to be a key figure in the illegal trade in plundered Cypriot antiquities.
In March 2013, the court had issued a partial ruling requiring Dikmen to return to the Cypriot church and government approximately 173 artefacts looted from churches, monasteries and museums in northern Cyprus after the Turkish invasion in 1974. The court commissioned further research to establish the provenance of further artefacts. Because of their age and the fact that they were removed from their original sites, the research failed to identify all of these pieces conclusively.
These objects were among more than 5,000 artefacts seized in Dikmen’s Munich apartment in 1997 and 1998 in the course of a police investigation into illegal antiquities trafficking that was initiated by Tasoula Hadjitofi, the founder of Walk of Truth, who at that time represented the Cypriot church and government in the Netherlands. They have languished in a police storage facility ever since, as attempts to extradite Dikmen to Cyprus failed and German criminal proceedings were dropped because of statutes of limitations.
“It is outrageous that the court should award the benefit of the doubt to a dealer known to have been involved in illegal trafficking instead of returning them to the Cypriot people,” Hadjitofi said. “We are appalled at this betrayal of Cyprus’s cultural and religious heritage, its people and its history.”
Walk of Truth has intervened to demand that the German authorities return no artefacts to Dikmen for at least one year and publish a full list of the more than 5,000 artefacts seized in his apartment so that other nations have a chance to identify and claim any treasures of their cultural heritage lost to looting.
At a time when terrorist groups are destroying the rich artistic legacy of ancient Mesopotamia and selling looted antiquities to raise money for weapons, it is more important than ever for democratic nations to take a united stand against the destruction, looting and trafficking of our shared global heritage.
Though these come too late to help Cyprus, Walk of Truth www.walkoftruth.org hopes that initiatives by German Culture Minister Monika Grütters to fight the illegal trade in antiquities will consign such tragedies to history. Recognising that Germany has become a hub for art trafficking, Grütters aims to present a draft law this year including a requirement that imported antiquities are accompanied by an export permit from the country of origin.
