Egypt’s top prosecutor Nabil Ahmed Sadek ordered that the former Honorary Consul of Italy to Luxor Ladislav Otakar Skakal be placed on Interpol’s red notice list and the ports’ wanted lists after being charged with illegally smuggling artifacts.
The former official was referred to a criminal trial upon investigations into the seizure of a smuggled shipment of 21,855 Egyptian artifacts in an Italian diplomatic container, at Salerno port in Italy.
The shipment was smuggled from Alexandria port.
Egypt recovered the artifacts in early July 2018 following direct contact between the Egyptian top prosecutor and the competent Italian judicial authorities.
According to a statement issued by the office of the top prosecutor on Tuesday, the investigations revealed that Skakal, who now lives in Rome, smuggled the artifacts seized in a diplomatic container as part of an agreement with the Egyptian official of a shipping and packaging company, who helped smuggle the artifacts outside Egypt for trafficking.
The Egyptian nationals involved were arrested and remanded in custody pending the case.
Prosecutors ordered the inspection of the Italian defendant’s former residence in Cairo.
Many artifacts were seized from the house, while other artifacts were seized from a treasury rented by the defendant at a private bank.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
