Dutch Court: 'Crimea artefacts must be returned to
Ukraine'
(Vatican Radio) A Dutch court has ruled that a trove of
historical artefacts being held by an Amsterdam museum must be returned to
Ukraine and not to four museums in Crimea, which loaned them out for an
exhibition in 2014. The decision is aimed at ending a cultural tug-of-war
triggered by Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Wednesday's ruling by the District Court of Amsterdam came
after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 left treasures in a legal limbo.
Both the Crimean museums and Ukraine demanded the return by Amsterdam's Allard
Pierson Museum of some 300 stunning historical artefacts.
The museum had borrowed them for a 2014 exhibition that
opened a month before the annexation. However judge Mieke Dudok van Heel ruled
that the artefacts should be returned to Ukraine, in part because Crimea is not
recognized as a separate country.
She explained "that the Crimean museums take the
position that the Crimean treasures belong to the cultural heritage of Crimea,
or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea."
However, she said, "neither Crimea, nor the Autonomous
Republic of Crimea are sovereign states. It is certain that the Autonomous
Republic of Crimea was anyway, at the moment of the export of the Crimean
treasures, part of the sovereign state of Ukraine."
The Amsterdam court's decision was a clear victory for
Ukraine, the court said that the treasures should remain in storage in
Amsterdam pending the outcome of a possible appeal. While Kiev was celebrating,
authorities in Crimea quickly announced they would appeal, calling the ruling
"another politicized, wrong decision which contradicts the laws."
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