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Columbus' bell seized by Spanish
By CNN Madrid bureau chief Al Goodman
MADRID (CNN) -- Spanish police have seized a weather-beaten bell about to be auctioned as an original item from Christopher Columbus' 1492 voyage to the New World. Police swooped on Monday after the Portuguese government suddenly laid claim to the relic, the chairman of the auction house handling the sale told CNN. The police marched into a Madrid luxury hotel with a Madrid court order, took the bell and suspended an auction that was planned for Thursday. It had been expected to fetch at least $1 million for the bell that some experts say was the original aboard Columbus' flagship, the Santa Maria. The court order indicated that an Italian diver, Roberto Mazzara, who has said he found the bell in 1994 in a 16th-century shipwreck off of Portugal's coast, could be charged with theft, said David del Val Catala, chairman and CEO of the auction company, Gestion de Activos y Subastas, based in Barcelona. "I am indignant," del Val Catala told CNN. He said the Portuguese had formed a commission to study the bell last December but "they have waited until today," when the bell was about to be presented to potential bidders. He said the Madrid investigating magistrate has given the auction house three days to reply to the court order, which was issued at the request of the Portuguese government. Del Val Catala said the court order made no allegations of wrongdoing against the auction house, instead only against the diver. Del Val Catala said his firm has spent several hundred thousand dollars promoting the auction and the authenticity of the bell, all in a very public manner, and he expressed doubt that Mazzara had committed any crime. Del Val Catala said his auction house had a report from legal experts some time ago suggesting that there would be no legal problems if he went ahead with the auction. Rosa Amora, deputy director of the Portuguese Archaeological Institute, told The Associated Press: "We're very happy. It's a small victory in a long war." The Spanish government had no immediate comment.
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