US Agents Poised to Seize Khmer Statue
Government officials and a representative at Unesco in Phnom Penh yesterday said that Sotheby’s in New York had no right to a 10th-century Khmer statue worth more than $2 million that US federal agents were expected to seize from the auction house today. On Wednesday, New York federal agents filed a civil complaint demanding that Sotheby’s in New York relinquish the sandstone statue—known as the Duryodhana—and return it to Cambodia on the basis that it constitutes stolen property and was brought into the US in violation of the law. But Sotheby’s, which has taken the item off its auction book, said in a strongly worded statement that the item had been legally imported. …
