Dispute over Return of Stolen Buddha Statue Unsolved
A Chinese Buddha statue with the mummified body of a Buddhist monk inside is on display at the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, Hungary on March 3, 2015. According to the Chinese characters written on the pilow of the statue, the body inside the statue belonged to Chinese Buddhist monk Zhang Liuquan who lived around A.D. 1100. [File Photo: Xinhua]
Legal experts are starting to weigh-in on what's going to be required for a group of villagers to reclaim a Buddha statue currently in the possession of a Dutch collector.
The villagers from rural Fujian claim the statue currently held by the Dutch collector was stolen from their village a number of years ago.
Negotiations have been underway to get the statue back.
However, they've since stalled, with the collector demanding 20-million US dollars in compensation for giving it back.
Huo Zhengxin with the China University of Political Science and Law, says one key to determining compensation is whether the collector's story holds up.
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If he was an innocent purchaser, which means he fulfilled the obligations to investigate the source of the antique, according to Dutch laws, he can now legally possess the statue after obtaining it for three years. If so, the reasonable compensation will include three parts: first, the 40,000 Dutch guilders he paid when buying it; second, the cost to research and preserve it in past years; third, the expenditure to transport it back to China and related insurance expense."
Huo Zhengxin says if the Dutch collector is lying, and knew about the alleged history of the buddha, things will be different.
"If he was a malicious buyer, or in other words, he did not fulfill the obligations to investigate the source of the antique, or he knew or he should have known that the statue was a stolen piece, the compensation will be much smaller- the Chinese side does not need to pay the amount of money that he paid when purchasing it."
Lawyers representing the village in its quest to win the custody of the Buddha statue have said that they will submit an appeal to a Dutch court.
The Dutch buyer says he purchased the statue from a Hong Kong dealer in 1996.
If he maintains his hold on the statue into next year, the villagers who claim the statue is theirs will lose much of their legal avenues to appeal, as 20-years is a benchmark for property ownership in most disputes of this nature.
2015-12-08 19:32:34 章公祖师 CRIENGLISH.com
Web Editor: Xu Leiying Dispute over Return of Stolen Buddha Statue Unsolved
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