CAIRO: A Cairo criminal court sentenced a former honorary Italian consul to 15 years in jail in absentia on Wednesday for smuggling antiquities out of the country, a judicial source said.
Ladislav Otakar Skakal, Italy’s former honorary consul in Luxor, attempted to smuggle 21,855 artefacts from various historical eras in 2017, according to the prosecutor general. These included over 21,000 golden coins, 151 miniature figurines, five mummy masks, 11 pottery vessels, three ceramic tiles dating to the Islamic period and a wooden sarcophagus.
Italian police found the sizeable loot in a diplomatic shipping container heading from the port city of Alexandria to Salerno in Italy in 2017. Skakal’s trial, along with other accomplices, began in September last year.
Prosecutors found that the antiquities were smuggled with the aid of Raouf Ghali, the brother of former Hosni Mubarak-era finance minister Youssef Ghali. A verdict is expected next month for Skakal’s alleged Egyptian accomplices.
Mobsters have moved aggressively into the low-risk, low-key world of white-collar crime
Deby has promised to bolster security, strengthen the rule of law and increase electricity production
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the attack took place near the village of Berezovka
Under Iraqi law, terrorism and murder offences are punishable by death
The Turkish defence ministry said the PKK militants had been “neutralised” in the Hakurk region
According to Italian broadcaster RAI, the workers suffered from toxic gas poisoning
