Sotheby’s Gets Stay on Khmer Statue Confiscation

7 April 2012
The Cambodia Daily
Judiciary and courts
Angkorian temple / Cambodia / Duryodhana / Khmer / Koh Ker / New York / Norton Simon Museum / Preet Bharara / Sotheby's / southern California / statue / US courts / US Government

The future of a 1,000-year-old Khmer statue—which Sotheby’s auction house in New York was ordered by the US government on Wednesday to hand back to Cambodia—is now in the hands of the US courts. The statue of the guardian Duryodhana is believed to have come from the Angkorian temple Koh Ker, where it stood along with its twin, now at the Norton Simon Museum in southern California. The two Angkorian stone statues were hacked off their pedestals presumably in the 1970s or 1980s while Cambodia was in turmoil. Preet Bharara, US attorney for the Southern District of New York, filed a civil complaint on Wednesday against Sotheby’s, alleging that the auction house knew the statue had been stolen and demanding that it be handed back to Cambodia. …