Loot from Baghdad museum seized at Jordanian border

Jordanian customs officials have seized 42 paintings believed to have been looted from Iraq's national museum, government officials said Saturday. Ad-Dustour, Jordan's second-largest daily newspaper, broke news of the seizure Saturday, quoting Mahmoud Qteishat, the director general of the Jordanian customs department.

According to the report, a group of journalists had tried to carry the paintings across the Karameh border post earlier this week, but they were discovered by officials and sent to the main customs department in Amman.

Jordanian customs said on Saturday they had confiscated 41 photographs documenting the life and times of former President Saddam Hussein that were stolen from Iraq's national museum amid the wave of looting after the U.S. seizure of Baghdad.

Customs Bureau chief Mahmoud Qutaishat said the photographs and four oil paintings were seized at the Karameh border post from a Western traveler arriving from Baghdad.

"They are rare pictures of the former Iraqi president taken during his years of exile in Syria and Egypt and other pictures of his childhood home along with audiences with world leaders and more recent pictures," Qutaishat told Reuters.

Qutaishat said the traveler, whom he declined to identify, confessed on Thursday to having taken the items from the museum.

Posted by David on April 19, 2003 1:49 PM