Court in Netherlands to consider appeal on Scythian gold today

March 11, Amsterdam Court of Appeal will hold a meeting on the case of Scythian gold.

Censor.NET reports citing the Ministry of Justice press service referring to Minister Pavlo Petrenko.

It is noted that representatives of the Ministry of Justice will participate in the meeting.

Feb. 15, Ukraine submitted additional evidence, including an expert opinion on the application of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on measures aimed at prohibiting and preventing the illegal import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural values by Professor Francesco Franchioni and expert opinion on issues of public international law that are relevant to the case by Professor Nico Schrejver.

"The position of Ukraine is based primarily on the norms of international law, in particular the provisions of the UNESCO Convention, and the provisions of the Ukrainian legislation, which enshrines the state’s right to disputed museum items. The museum that owns the items from the state part of the Museum Fund of Ukraine has no right to dispose of them." said Petrenko.

Read more: Dutch confident Russia will agree to talks about downed flight MH17, - Dutch MFA

Petrenko recalled that the Netherlands have more than 565 museum items from the "Crimea. Golden Island in the Black Sea" collection belonging to Ukraine's Museum Fund.

These are mostly archaeological finds. The insured value of the collection is EUR 10 million.

"Exhibits that are held in the Allard Pearson Museum in the Netherlands are to be returned to Ukraine with subsequent transfer to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine for storage," said the chairman of the Ministry of Justice.

The Scythian gold that was brought to the Netherlands as part of the "Crimea. Golden Island in the Black Sea" exhibition in February 2014 has been kept there since that time. By the end of February 2014 Crimea was annexed by Russia, and the Dutch couldn’t decide where to return the Scythian gold - a collection of 565 museum items.