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Art stolen in World War II returned to Germany

Rembrandt
U.S. authorities returned this Rembrandt sketch valued at $5 million.  


By Phil Hirschkorn
CNN New York Bureau

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A 58-year odyssey for a dozen rare, twice-stolen drawings ended Thursday with the return of the art, valued at more than $15 million, to Germany.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill handed over a dozen drawings -- among them a Rembrandt sketch and two pieces by Albrecht Durer -- to the president of the Bremen Museum in a ceremony at the U.S. Customs House in Manhattan.

"When stolen treasures are smuggled into the U.S., we do all we can to return them to their rightful owners and to bring any wrongdoers to justice," O'Neill said. "We take our responsibility very seriously and today we are happy to celebrate a victory in that regard."

U.S. customs agents seized the ink drawings in a sting operation four years ago. Durer's "Women Bathing," which dates to 1496, is the collection's most valuable work at an estimated $10 million. Experts estimate Rembrandt's "Woman With Her Arms Raised," which may depict the artist's wife, is worth $5 million.

The drawings were among 1,500 art works the Bremen Museum moved into a castle outside Berlin in 1943 moved for safekeeping. Soviet troops later removed them, and the pictures did not resurface until 1993 when the National Arts Museum in Baku, Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, planned to exhibit them.

That is when the drawings were stolen a second time, along with 180 other drawings belonging to the Baku museum.

Durer
This Durer piece dates to the 15th century.  

Four years after the July 1993 theft, a Japanese businessman, Masatsugu Koga, approached the German embassy in Tokyo offering to sell eight of the Bremen drawings for $12 million.

By September 1997, Koga's negotiations with the museum had moved to New York City. An undercover customs agent joined a museum representative in a meeting with Koga at Manhattan's Grand Hyatt Hotel at which Koga brought six drawings, including the Rembrandt and the two Durers.

Koga was arrested, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and possession of stolen property, but he died before he could be sentenced. His accomplice, a former Azerbaijani prosecutor, Natavan Aleskrova, was arrested the following month.

More drawings were recovered from a Brooklyn apartment.

After a jury trial, Aleskrova was sentenced to 11 months in federal prison. Her ex-husband, Aydyn Ali Ibragimov, a former Olympic wrestling champion, is still wanted in the case.

"This case demonstrates the strong commitment of the United States government to investigating and prosecuting the international transportation and sale of stolen property," said Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney for Manhattan. "This case also demonstrates, maybe above all, the critical importance of international cooperation on law enforcement today."

Officials returned stolen drawings belonging to the Baku museum to Azerbaijan last month.

Wolfgang Ischinger, Germany's newly appointed ambassador to the United States, was on hand for the drawings' handover.

Signing
O'Neill, left, and Abegg sign documents making the handover official.  

"We are delighted to celebrate with all of you today the positive outcome of one very important case," Ischinger said. "Allow me to express the hope that the other pieces which disappeared in the course of the war or after the war will also find their way back to Bremen and to other places where they belong," he said.

George Abegg, president of the Bremen Museum, who received the pieces from O'Neill, said they will be exhibited in September.

Rembrandt, the revered Dutch painter, lived from 1606 to 1669. Durer, considered by some to be Germany's greatest artist of the Renaissance era, lived from 1471 to 1528.






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