ISLAMABAD: France has returned “some 512 artefacts dating back to [the] second and third millennium BCE” to Pakistan, said a statement issued by the Foreign Office on Tuesday.
“Some 512 artefacts dating back to second and third millennium BC[E], stolen and smuggled from Pakistan to France were seized by French Customs at Paris Airport during 2006-7,” the statement said, adding that the customs agents at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport in 2006 had intercepted a parcel from Pakistan containing 17 terracotta pots addressed to a museum in the city, claiming they were more than 100 years old.
But an expert who examined them concluded they were artefacts dating back to the second or third millennium BCE which had likely been stolen from burial sites in Balochistan.
French Ministry of Action and Public Accounts Customs and Indirect Rights Director General Rodolphe Gintz handed over the rare and precious artefacts to our Embassy in France in a simple ceremony.
Speaking at the ceremony, Gintz expressed satisfaction over the successful closure of nearly 12 years old case in which France fulfilled its obligations under UNESCO Convention of 1970 on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and transport of Ownership of Cultural property, to which both Pakistan and France are signatories.
