Museum director given house arrest for historical artifact smuggling

AYDIN

The court has converted the detention of the museum director, who prepared a report claiming that Donatello’s David sculpture was fake, into house arrest within the scope of a historical artifact smuggling operation in the Aegean province of Aydın.

In the first court, Abdülbari Yıldız, the museum director, was released from prison with a sentence of house arrest, while the court decided the continuation of the pending trials of other suspects.

The provincial anti-smuggling teams found a statute during a search of a vehicle as part of the historical artifacts smuggling operations in January.

The report requested from the provincial museum directorate by the police claimed that the statue was fake and should be returned to its owner.

Two experts from Ege University, on the other hand, approved that the statue David was a historical artifact.

The teams organized simultaneous operations in the capital Ankara, the northern province of Amasya, the southern province of Mersin, the Central Anatolian provinces of Aksaray and Kayseri and the southwestern province of Muğla over suspicions.

Some 36 people, including Abdülbari Yıldız, his wife, some museum personnel and two police officer were detained.

One of the suspects confessed that he tried to find a buyer for the statue on behalf of museum director Yıldız.

Two detectors and an unlicensed gun were also seized in the suspects’ houses, workplaces and vehicles.

Yıldız was arrested on charges of violation of the law on the protection of cultural and natural heritage, bribery, bid rigging and forgery on official documents.

The prosecutor sought a prison sentence of up to 79 years for Yıldız, who was also accused of establishing and managing an illegal organization, and from two to 52 years for other perpetrators before the first court.