BEIRUT (AP) — Interpol has issued an international warrant for a Lebanese man suspected of smuggling stolen antiquities, weeks after questioning him in Lebanon, judicial officials said Friday.
The Red Notice was dropped 10 months after a criminal court in New York issued an arrest warrant for 82-year-old Georges Lotfi, who was charged with criminal possession of stolen property as well as possession of looted artworks.
Officials did not provide further details about the Interpol warrant, which is a non-binding request to law enforcement agencies around the world to locate and provisionally arrest a fugitive. The notice is not an arrest warrant and does not require Lebanon to arrest Lotfi.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the US judiciary has referred the case involving Lotfi to Lebanon and asked authorities in the Mediterranean nation to process it.
When Lotfi was called in for questioning by Lebanese authorities earlier this year, officials said he denied allegations that he had stolen the antiquities, saying instead he had bought them from archaeologists and given them to a museum in the US. was sold to
He said it later became clear that 27 antiquities had been stolen from a warehouse in Lebanon in 1981. The Interpol Red Notice that was posted online said Lotfi has been charged with criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree, second degree and third degree.
Lotfi currently lives in Lebanon, which is home to invaluable archaeological sites.
US officials said they would return the antiquities to Lebanon on the condition that Lebanese authorities arrest Lotfi, officials said.
Officials said that once Lebanon formally receives the Interpol warrant, the country’s authorities should call Lotfi in for questioning and confiscate his passport.
Lotfi’s case is not the first of its kind. Smuggling and looting of antiquities was not uncommon in Lebanon during the chaos of the 1975–90 civil war.
In 2018, Lebanon received a trio of ancient artifacts looted from the country during its civil war and recently recovered by New York authorities.
The treasure included a marble bull head dating to around 360 BC, which had been excavated decades earlier at a Phoenician temple in south Lebanon. The other two were marble torsos from the 4th and 6th centuries BCE.
