"Antiquities-Smuggle Rap Zapped"

In an article in the New York Post under a headline so corny I had to share it (Isabel Vincent, "Antiquities-Smuggle Rap Zapped", New York Post January 18, 2009 ) has picked up the Aboutaam arrest story (see David Gill's post on Looting Matters). As readers will recall, Aboutaam, 43, runs Phoenix Ancient Art on the Upper East Side (though lives in Geneva) but was convicted in Cairo in 2004 of smuggling Egyptian artefacts for which he received a 15-year prison sentence in absentia. He was arrested in September last year at Sofia airport.

Vincent's article claims that Aboutaam "spent several weeks under house arrest in Sofia, Bulgaria, as officials debated whether to honor an Interpol warrant issued by the Egyptians, according to court papers". She says that "Bulgaria this month rejected the extradition request."

Peter Chavkin, a Manhattan attorney for Aboutaam, is quoted as saying:
"I think it would be very helpful if the Egyptians read the Bulgarian opinion", "The Bulgarian authorities found that Ali was not afforded fundamental protections and that the underlying conviction was bogus."

David Gill returns to the coverage of the 2004 case and while it is difficult to judge, the New York Times account (Barry Meier and Martin Gottlieb, "An Illicit Journey Out of Egypt, Only a Few Questions Asked", NYT February 23, 2004) suggests that the evidence against Mr Aboutaam might well be of a nature which might be questioned by a European court. ["Mr. Aboutaam had been indicted based on telephone conversations secretly recorded last year, along with other information that showed he had received smuggled artifacts through Mr. Suwaysi's ring".] Obtaining the court documents from Egypt and translating them might account for the delay in Aboutaam’s extradition hearing in Bulgaria.

Aboutaam's attorney Peter Chavin is from the New York office of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo P.C. On their webpage it says that in the field of "Art Fraud" he has "represented one of the world's most significant antiquities dealers in a variety of criminal and civil matters, as well as one of the world's most important collectors in disputes with foreign nations".