FRANCE: Stolen artifacts returned to Israel 25 years after they were stolen from a Jerusalem museum by an Israeli burglar

Record ID: 397751

  • Title: FRANCE: Stolen artifacts returned to Israel 25 years after they were stolen from a Jerusalem museum by an Israeli burglar
  • Date: 21st March 2009
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (MARCH 20, 2009) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WOMEN PLACING OBJECTS ON A TABLE VARIOUS OF OBJECTS JOURNALISTS LOOKING AT OBJECTS VARIOUS OF OBJECTS WOMAN HOLDING OBJECT OBJECTS EMBASSY OFFICIAL GIVING SPEECH, SURROUNDED BY AVI ROIF, ISRAELI POLICE OFFICIAL AND DANIEL SHEK, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE (*** FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ***) AVI ROIF SHAKING HANDS WITH PIERRE TA
  • Embargoed: 5th April 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: International Relations,Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVAAJUHM9WL2IFYIDXFZO2WCJ3XS
  • Story Text: French authorities returned 47 rare objects to Israel which had been stolen from a Jerusalem museum in 1983 at a ceremony at the Israeli embassy in Paris on Friday (March 20) .
    The objects, mostly gentleman's watches and clocks, were found in a vault at a French bank last November thanks to close cooperation between French and Israeli police. Among the returned items was an 18th century watch made by the famous watch maker Abraham-Louis Breguet for French queen Marie Antoinette.

    "Our Israeli colleagues had a lot of trouble tracking down these objects, but they finally succeeded in finding the trail in 2004 and 2005.
    Last November we found them in a bank vault. So in the end the search was a great success, and it was a happy ending to this treasure hunt," said Pierre Tabel, head of the French Gendarmerie's Cultural Goods Trafficking division.
    The objects had been stolen from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in 1983 by Ma'man Diller, a notorious Israeli thief known as the "Kibboutz burglar" who died from skin cancer in 2004.

    "It is very exciting, after all this time, all those years. My unit is not used to dealing with cases such as this, the investigation is very interesting, very complicated, crossing continents, and for us, to find this respectful number of items of the watch collection and retrieve it back to the museum, where it was kept, is very exciting," said Israeli police official Avi Roif, who worked with French police to track down the stolen objects.
    Several other pieces from the 1983 robbery have still not been found.
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