Cambodia welcomes back dozens of artefacts looted by UK trafficker

Some of the artefacts date back more than around 1,000 years. Read more at straitstimes.com.

PHNOM PENH – Cambodian monks chanted blessings and scattered flowers on Feb 27 over 74 cultural artefacts returned to the country after being plundered by a notorious British antiques smuggler.

Scholar Douglas Latchford – once regarded as a key authority on Cambodian antiquities – was charged by prosecutors in New York in 2019 with smuggling looted Cambodian relics to sell on the international black market.

Cambodia’s culture ministry said the repatriation from Britain of the relics, some dating back more than around 1,000 years, was sealed in a deal with the estate of Latchford – who died in Bangkok in 2020.

Before the scandal came to light, Latchford earned acclaim for books detailing the art of the ancient Khmer Empire, which spanned modern-day Cambodia and much else of South-east Asia.

Deputy Prime Minister Hun Many told reporters the return of the artefacts was a matter of “national pride” because the pieces “connect the national soul from our ancestors’ era to the current time”.

The objects, to form part of the collection at the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, include “monumental sandstone sculptures, refined bronze works, and significant ritual objects”, said a culture ministry statement.