Yassin Alcharihi, a 56-year-old man living in Southern California, is on trial for allegedly smuggling an ancient Roman mosaic into the United States. The Justice Ministry believes the mosaic was looted in Syria during the country’s civil war.
Alcharihi was billed in 2020 of lying about the contents of a shipment of objects he received from Turkey in 2015, claiming that the mosaic in question was only worth $587 when its real value was in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The FBI seized the 18-foot mosaic in 2016 from Alcharihi’s residence in Palmdale, California, and an expert appraisal of the piece determined it to be a product of the Byzantine period, depicting Hercules in a style consistent with the cultural production of the region at the time. it is now Syria.
Prosecution alleges Alcharihi received an SMS from a Syrian colleague with a photo of the mosaic in 2015; the two purchased a variety of new vases and mosaics and had them shipped to the United States along with the old artifact. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles has filed a complaint for confiscation to recover the mosaic in 2018, citing “smuggling [of] looted items believed to be from a foreign conflict zone to the United States”.
Alcharihi public defender Ashley Mahmoudian told jurors in her opening statement this week that the “mosaic is fake,” Courthouse News reported. According to his lawyer, Alcharihi claimed that it had been imported “as waste” and that he thought it was a “Turkish mosaic”. The defense characterized Alcharihi as relying on an inexperienced customs broker whose documentation left much to be desired. The shipping documents claimed that the items in the original shipment were worth $2,200. Alcharihi later admitted he paid $12,000 for the lot.
Randall Hixenbaugh, a New Yorker Merchant in ancient art brought by the defense to provide an assessment of the authenticity of the mosaic, suggested that it may not be genuine. He pointed to the presence of a female figure wearing trousers as a suspicious detail – telling the court that it is ‘a symbol of male barbarism to wear trousers’ in ancient Greek and Roman art, according to Courthouse News– and estimated the value of the mural at $30,000.
The prosecution, on the other hand, alleges that Alcharihi’s digital correspondence will prove that he was aware of the true value and authenticity of the mosaic. A government expert will testify that the materials making up the mosaic come from the eastern Mediterranean and that the artifact is indeed 2,000 years old.
Syria’s Idlib region, where the mosaic is believed to have been created, has been plagued by conflict between rebel and jihadist groups and the Syrian government since 2011. The United States has imposed restrictions on the import of archaeological material to protect Syrian cultural heritage. “The appearance in the United States of objects stolen or illegally exported from other countries where there has been looting has, on occasion, strained our foreign and cultural relations,” said a spokesperson for Customs and Customs. the protection of the American borders in a statement 2020. “This situation, combined with the concerns of the museum, archaeological, and scholarly communities, has been recognized by the President and Congress.”
