After years of continuous legal pursuit, Iran’s Cultural Heritage Organization and its embassy in Rome finally managed to win back the stolen cultural objects that had been smuggled to the European country during the past 10 years.
Thanks to the UNIDROIT Convention on the International Return of Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects signed in 1995 in Rome, an appellate court in the northern Italian city of Milan issued a restitution order that guaranteed the return of Iran’s stolen artefacts in September.
“Today, for the very first time the UNIDROIT Convention was put into effect and the smuggled haul from Iran will be retruned to the country’s national museum,” said Talebian on Friday.
The smuggled artifacts include items belonging to Iran’s pre- and post-Islamic era. They had been recovered by the Italian art police in the northern Italian city of Monza in 2007 and handed over to a representative from the Iranian Embassy in Italy during a ceremony held at the National Museum of Oriental Art in Rome.
The ceremony was attended by Mohammad-Hassan Talebian, the Deputy of Iran’s Cultural Heritage Organization, and Paola Piacentini, from the administrative office of the museum.
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