CAIRO — The Cairo Court of Appeal has set Nov. 6 as the first trial session for 12 defendants — 11 Egyptians and one American — charged with smuggling hundreds of Egyptian artifacts to the United States, the state-run Dar el-Hilal news agency reported Oct. 18.
The Cairo Court of Appeal charged Oct. 18 an American and 11 Egyptians with felonies, accusing them of smuggling 586 artifacts, some dating back 4,000 years. In February, the JFK International Airport authorities had arrested the American citizen, who is of Egyptian origin, after finding in his possession the artifacts stashed in three bags when he arrived in New York.
The first witness in the case, Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, supervisor of the Repatriation Antiquities Department at the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism, revealed during the investigations that he received an email from the Immigration Services at the US Embassy in Cairo, stating that the American defendant had been arrested at the airport in New York with 360 Egyptian artifacts hidden inside three bags that had been registered on an EgyptAir flight from Cairo International Airport.
According to Abdel-Gawad’s testimony, he had obtained information that the American defendant had worked with other suspected smugglers in the past, and that the total number of artifacts in the case reached 586 pieces, whose archaeological evidence was proven after examination, dating back to different historical eras of Egyptian civilization.
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