A company director has been arrested on suspicion of illegally keeping part of a statue of Saddam Hussein taken from Iraq in 2003. Jim Thorpe, director of Trebletap, was questioned over the company's plans to sell the 2ft bronze piece of buttock.
The piece was brought to the UK by the firm's founder Nigel Ely but failed to sell at an auction in Derby after failing to meet its reserve price.
Mr Ely, from Herefordshire, was questioned earlier this week.
Derbyshire police said the Iraqi government had made a complaint to the Metropolitan Police last week via the Iraqi Embassy. The complaint had been passed to them as the agents and the statue were situated in Derby.
Mr Ely was issued with a notice, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, advising him not to alter or dispose of the item until the matter is resolved.
Cultural property
Mr Thorpe was questioned on suspicion of breaching Section 8 of the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003 before being released on bail pending further inquiries. Under the order, anyone possessing Iraqi cultural property must give it to the police.
Trebletap, which specialises in turning war memorabilia into pieces of art, told BBC Radio Derby earlier this week that it was keeping the statue in a secret location.
Mr Ely, a former SAS soldier, used a sledgehammer and chisel to remove the portion when the statue was brought down in central Baghdad at the end of Hussein's reign.
He said he planned to sell it to raise money for charity but withdrew it from sale at an auction in October after it failed to meet its £250,000 reserve.
There's two updates about this, but I'll try to post them later.
Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not seeing the problem here. It's not like he looted it from a museum. The idea that statues of latter-day dictators, especially statues that have already been vandalised and are not going to be restored, represent some kind of meaningful cultural heritage (as implied by the UN), does not appear to have any merit on the face of it.
What am I missing?
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society - Karl Marx Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value - R. Buckminster Fuller The important thing is not to be human but to be humane - Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Nova Mundi, my laughable attempt at an original worldbuilding/gameplay project
NoXion wrote:Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not seeing the problem here. It's not like he looted it from a museum. The idea that statues of latter-day dictators, especially statues that have already been vandalised and are not going to be restored, represent some kind of meaningful cultural heritage (as implied by the UN), does not appear to have any merit on the face of it.
What am I missing?
The bit where the Iraqis have complained to the Met.
There was a story in the news not long after the war about some cavalry mob that acquired a smaller (life-sized) version of that statue and shipped it back to the UK. They asked the locals if they wanted to keep it, they didn't, so he's now pointing the way to the Regimental tennis courts. I suspect the difference is that they asked and this bloke didn't.
Captain Seafort wrote:The bit where the Iraqis have complained to the Met.
There was a story in the news not long after the war about some cavalry mob that acquired a smaller (life-sized) version of that statue and shipped it back to the UK. They asked the locals if they wanted to keep it, they didn't, so he's now pointing the way to the Regimental tennis courts. I suspect the difference is that they asked and this bloke didn't.
Fair enough, but what about the rest of the statue? If this guy was able to get a piece of ass from it (heheh), I somehow suspect that the statue is not in an altogether state. Which begs the question of why the Iraqi government is going to the trouble.
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society - Karl Marx Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value - R. Buckminster Fuller The important thing is not to be human but to be humane - Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Nova Mundi, my laughable attempt at an original worldbuilding/gameplay project
It was very probably a deliberately chosen part of the statue.
NoXion wrote:Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not seeing the problem here. It's not like he looted it from a museum. The idea that statues of latter-day dictators, especially statues that have already been vandalised and are not going to be restored, represent some kind of meaningful cultural heritage (as implied by the UN), does not appear to have any merit on the face of it.
What am I missing?
Some Englishman had got Saddam Husseins buttocks, I would imagine there are any number of Iraqis who would want that little souvenir to throw darts at.
So I stare wistfully at the Lightning for a couple of minutes. Two missiles, sharply raked razor-thin wings, a huge, pregnant belly full of fuel, and the two screamingly powerful engines that once rammed it from a cold start to a thousand miles per hour in under a minute. Life would be so much easier if our adverseries could be dealt with by supersonic death on wings - but alas, Human resources aren't so easily defeated.
Actually, Saddam Hussein would probably fit right in as a Mesopotamian monarch, down to the preposterous number of palaces and torture chambers. I don't think it's unreasonable for the Iraqis to want to preserve some artifacts of his rule for the distant future. Three hundred years from now, I think he'll be 'just another king,' so to speak, not a designated evil boogeyman.
Sort of like how modern Russians don't try to efface the memory that Czar Nicholas II ever existed.
Simon_Jester wrote:Actually, Saddam Hussein would probably fit right in as a Mesopotamian monarch, down to the preposterous number of palaces and torture chambers. I don't think it's unreasonable for the Iraqis to want to preserve some artifacts of his rule for the distant future. Three hundred years from now, I think he'll be 'just another king,' so to speak, not a designated evil boogeyman.
is about the only answer fit for this.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------ My LPs
Simon_Jester wrote:Sort of like how modern Russians don't try to efface the memory that Czar Nicholas II ever existed.
Who said anything about erasing the memory of Saddam? This wasn't part of some concerted campaign to re-write history. This was some opportunistic souvenir-gathering that was later attempted to be capitalised upon (that sentence is really fucking awkward by the way). If Saddam was as egotistical as you seem to be implying, then there shouldn't be a shortage of statues in his image. Unless of course, Saddam was sufficiently unpopular for all his publicly accessible statues to have been destroyed.
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society - Karl Marx Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value - R. Buckminster Fuller The important thing is not to be human but to be humane - Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Nova Mundi, my laughable attempt at an original worldbuilding/gameplay project
is about the only answer fit for this.