Iraqi court confirms ISIS smuggled artifacts through Turkey, Syria
Iraqi artifacts. Photo: AFP
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Head of the Nineveh Court of Appeal, Judge Raed Hamid Al-Musleh, announced that ISIS terrorists smuggled and traded Iraqi antiquities through two paths to Turkey and Syria.
Al-Musleh added that Nineveh governorate witnessed a lot of theft and smuggling of Iraqi artifacts.
The Iraqi judge mentioned that a mechanism, plans, and programs for dealing with stolen and traded antiquities were put in place by the Nineveh Investigation Court and the Organized Crime Directorate in the Iraqi Intelligence.
Al-Musleh noted that Nineveh Antiquities and Heritage Inspectorate provided the Court of Appeal with details and pictures of the artifacts stolen during the period ISIS controlled the governorate, to disseminate the descriptions of the stolen antiquities to the concerned directorates in all Iraqi governorates to be recovered and to arrest the traffickers.
The head of Nineveh’s Court of Appeal elaborated that the Organized Crime Directorate pursues antiquities dealers, arrests them, seizes the artifacts being traded, and provides information and studies about stolen antiquities to the authorities.
“The information and studies help recover looted antiquities from countries of the world, which criminals and terrorists smuggled from the city of Mosul,” Al-Musleh stated.
The Iraqi Judge mentioned that the smuggling of antiquities was taking place through Turkey and Syria, where ISIS worked after deceiving the world that it destroyed the artifacts because they were considered idols according to their extremist ideological beliefs.
Al-Musleh also indicated that ISIS criminals used bulldozers to uncover archaeological sites and used local people to dig these sites and steal artifacts.