Cambodia Demands Met Return 45 Khmer Antiquities Linked to Looter 'the Lion'

Phoeurng Sackona, Cambodia's culture minister, has urged the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to return as many as 45 antiquities from the Khmer Empire, claiming they were taken unlawfully. A convicted looter, referred to as 'the Lion,' has provided evidence indicating that the museum possesses items he extracted from heritage sites, including statues, bronzes, gold, and jewels. For the past two years, Cambodian officials have collaborated with the looter to trace these artifacts from various sites in Cambodia through Thai brokers to the Met's Fifth Avenue address. The looter recognized 33 items in the museum's collection as his own and 11 more as stolen by others. The acquisition dates of these pieces correspond with the 1970s to 1990s, the time 'the Lion' was active. Sackona expressed her astonishment and disappointment regarding the number of Cambodian statues in the museum, stressing the need for truth and restitution. The Met has stated it actively supports restitution claims. This comes after the Denver Art Museum agreed last week to return four artifacts to Cambodia, linked to British trafficker Douglas Latchford, who was indicted in 2019 and passed away in 2020. The Pandora Papers also implicated other institutions, including the British Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, for possessing relics associated with Latchford and his associates.