Tunisia plans to return stolen Mask of Gorgon to Algeria

TUNIS - Tunisia will return the Mask of Gorgon, a Roman-era artefact stolen from Algeria in the 1990s and found at the home of the ousted president's son-in-law, the culture ministry said Thursday.
The white marble sculpture of the Medusa's head will be returned on Monday to the Algerian Culture Minister Khalida Toumi at a ceremony in Tunis, a ministry spokeswoman said.
The mask, which is around a metre (three feet) high and weighs 320 kilos (700 pounds), was stolen from the archaeological site of a major Roman city, Hippo Regius, in northeastern Algeria.
It was among 164 archaeological items found in the house of Sakher El Materi, who married Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's eldest daughter and was long seen as a possible successor.
The artefacts were shown in a television programme broadcast after the Tunisian strongman's ouster in the January 2011 uprising, and the mask was recognised by a former director of the museum in the Algerian city of Annaba, where the Roman site lies.
Its authenticity was confirmed in 2012 by a group of experts sent to Tunisia by Algeria's cultural ministry.
Tunisia's government had promised in 2012 that it would be returned to Algeria "after the completion of legal procedures".
The marble sculpture was being held by the Tunisian authorities as evidence in a case against Materi for trafficking archaeological artefacts.
The ex-dictator's son-in-law, who has already been convicted in absentia to 16 years in prison and fined 97 million dinars ($61 million) for corruption and property fraud, sought asylum in the Seychelles in February 2013.
Authorities in the Indian Ocean archipelago said last week that they would allow him to stay for another 12 months.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=65194

Comments

  1. Anonymous4 April 2014 at 04:17

    El Matri spends 200,000 Scr a day only on personal expenses. So you know why they keep him in Seychelles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous4 April 2014 at 10:09

    PP ARAZE LARGENT!!!Bankrupt this country and then accept all kind of devils on our shore just for money.The hole world know Seychelles dictator will welcome every one around the world, if they know their got a coffer full with million in it bad guys egal for pp. Now together they have form a gangs thats why they can not stop hard drugs coming on our shore.We a few foreign escobar on the island working with a few pp escobar.
    We will Stop it before every things are f**k by you crooks.

    PP will you give El Matri one more year next year?or you wait until his pocket is empty?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous4 April 2014 at 23:00

    It was time to give CAESAR back what belongs to CAESAR.I hope PP learn for Tunisian gesture and hand over MATERI to the TUNISIAN governemnt to purge his 16 years prison sentences than illegally protecting him under rediculous arguments .

    Jeanne D?Arc

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous4 April 2014 at 23:02

    Partilepep thinks 16 years imprisonemnt eqautes Capital sentence.Michel is trying to make us beleive he does not not the different between execution and prison senteces he who has butchered dozens of innocent Seychellois.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous7 April 2014 at 08:08

    Every time a foreigner land on our shore with money, PP are like shepherd around the sheeps.

    ReplyDelete

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