The district court in Munich, Germany acquitted a man who was suspected of smuggling antique silver from Ukraine.
This was reported by Antenne.de.
A man brought parts of two silver plates from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD as a lot to an auction house in Grasbrunn, near Munich.
It is believed that these fragments are cultural values that were stolen after excavations in the Ternopil region in 2016-2017. The prosecutorʼs office assumed that the suspect illegally imported the artifacts to Germany in 2019-2020.
However, the court acquitted the accused. According to the judges, it cannot be ruled out that the man could have purchased the products "a long time ago from a dealer in Stuttgart" and "that the objects have been at auction for a long time."
- In 2020, the Ukrainian National Committee of the International Council of Museums reported that silver artifacts from Roman times illegally exported from Ukraine were discovered in Germany. The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine did not grant permission to export these monuments. Two items were found at one of the German antiquities auctions. The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba and other Ukrainian diplomats appealed to the law enforcement agencies of Germany and persuaded the auction to remove the lots from sale.