Scythian gold case: the court of Amsterdam announced the decision
On Tuesday, October 26, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal decided to hand over the Scythian gold to Ukraine.
Rubryka reports.
After Russia's occupation of Crimea, the Dutch authorities were faced with the question of whom to return the exhibits found on the peninsula, which were temporarily exhibited in one of the museums in Amsterdam.
In December 2016, the city court decided to return the Scythian gold to Ukraine, but in 2017, Crimean museums appealed.
In total, the proceedings, in this case, lasted seven years.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the court's decision.
Довгоочікувана перемога 🇺🇦 в суді Амстердама! «Скіфське золото» повернеться до України. Вдячний суду за справедливе рішення, а командам @minjust_gov_ua, @MFA_Ukraine та @MKIPUkraine за результат. Ми завжди повертаємо своє. Спочатку повернемо «скіфське золото», а потім і Крим.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 26, 2021
The collection of 565 museum exhibits was brought to the exhibition "Crimea. Golden Island in the Black Sea "in Amsterdam from four Crimean museums before the Russian occupation of the peninsula. In 2016, the Amsterdam District Court ruled that the collection should be returned to Ukraine, not to the occupied Crimea.
The decisions were then made based on a UNESCO convention, according to which the artistic values must be returned to the sovereign state, which provided them for temporary exhibition.
Representatives of the Crimean museums in the occupied territory appealed to the Court of Appeal. However, the Court of Appeal only upheld the district court's decision.
Museums now have the right to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of The Hague in the Netherlands. At the time of the trial, the "Scythian gold" is stored in the Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam.
