http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/974483.html
Criminal case 482/04, the State of Israel v. Oded Golan and others, lays out
the details of one of the biggest forgery scandals ever in the history of
archaeology. According to the indictment, those miseld by Golan, a
well-known Tel Aviv antiquities collector, included renowned experts who
were ready to confirm the authenticity of the many and controversial
findings he supposedly discovered, such as the Jehoash Tablet inscription
and an ossuary that supposedly held the bones of James, the brother of
Jesus.
And yet, today, three years after the start of the trial, after more than 70
witnesses for the prosecution have taken the stand, and the defense has
started to present its arguments, the state prosecutor's office and the
Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), which initiated the indictment, face a
problem: Marco Samah Shoukri Ghatas, the Egyptian artist who confessed to
manufacturing many items for Golan, including the Jehoash inscription, will
not be coming to Israel to testify. According to the IAA, it is the Egyptian
authorities that are preventing Ghatas from coming to Israel. Golan's
attorney, Lior Bringer, on the other hand, counters that it was the
Egyptian's choice not to come.
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gif>
Either way, the prosecution believes it will win the case even without the
testimony of Ghatas, a talented stone artist and jeweler from the Khan
al-Khalili market in Cairo. The testimony submitted in an interrogation
conducted by the Egyptians and in which he confessed to many of the crimes,
has already been cited in the Jerusalem District Court, where the case is
being heard by Judge Aharon Farkash. Nevertheless, says an IAA official,
"we're very interested in bringing him to Israel, so that the man who by his
own admission forged the antiquities for Golan, will say so formally in
court."
...
Lior Bringer, Golan's attorney, says his client denies all the charges
attributed to him and stands by the authenticity of the items. "It seems
unlikely to me," says Bringer, "that [Ghatas], who was in Israel so many
times, encountered trouble coming here to testify. It doesn't seem to me
that the Egyptian government prevented him from coming here. What seems more
likely is that the man himself prefers, for reasons of his own, not to come
to Israel. The antiquities that the Israel Antiquities Authority claims are
forgeries - the Jehoash inscription, the ossuary and all the rest, are
authentic," says Bringer.
Dave Welsh
Unidroit-L Listowner
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Unidroit-L
dwelsh46@cox.net
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