[MSN] FW: [Leidennetwork] looters on trial

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

From: Molot, Henry

Sent: October 16, 2006 10:41 AM

To: Donohue, Amos; Carter, Robin; Gauthier, Mark (TC)

Subject: Three Britons are due to go on trial in Italy today accused of
illegally salvaging more than £320,000 worth of gold, silver and diamonds
from a shipwreck.

Three Britons are due to go on trial in Italy today accused of illegally
salvaging more than £320,000 worth of gold, silver and diamonds from a
shipwreck.

Nicholas Pearson, David Dixon, and Kerr Sinclair
</news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/07/05/ngold05.xml> are accused of illegally
diving and damaging the wreck of the Pollux, an Italian steam ship which
sank off the coast of Elba in 1841.

The three men, along with five other Britons, chartered a salvage ship in
2000 and bought a £2,500 licence to retrieve tin ingots from the Glen Logan,
a British merchant ship torpedoed by a U-boat in 1916 near the island of
Stromboli in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

However, instead of working on the Glen Logan, the men diverted their course
460 miles north and found the wreck of the 150ft Pollux.

Pascal Kainac, a historian from Paris, will also stand trial today at
Portoferraio in Elba for supplying the men with the ancient maps and
co-ordinates to help them find the Pollux.

After three weeks of diving, the men recovered 311 French and Spanish gold
coins, 2,000 silver coins, some diamonds and other pieces of jewellery.

The Pollux sank in just 15 minutes after being hit by another steam ship.

According to reports at the time, the ship carried 100,000 gold coins,
70,000 silver ones and "a gold carriage belonging to the Contessa de la
Rocca". There were also rumours that the other steam ship was manned by
pirates.

Although the Pollux's owner mounted several rescue missions for it during
the 1840s, he eventually conceded that the boat was lying too deeply to be
retrieved. The British divers, who deny wrongdoing, were arrested after
irregularities in their paperwork tipped off the Receiver of the Wreck,
based at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in Southampton.

A joint investigation by Scotland Yard and the office of Italian Patrimony
in Florence followed.

The men were about to sell the treasure, which they claimed they had found
in international waters, at an auction house in Bond Street. Instead, the
coins and jewellery were confiscated and returned to Italy, where they will
go on display at a museum in Elba.

Mr Pearson, a property developer from Great Yarmouth, maintains that the
divers have been the victims of a bureaucratic mistake. He has said their
activities had been "declared correctly with the British Government" and
that Italian authorities had visited their salvage vessel every day during
the project.

Mr Sinclair, a diver from Corton near Lowestoft, said: "Blood, sweat and
tears went into getting it and we lost it on a technicality."

Cesarina Barghini, the Italian lawyer defending the men said the rules
surrounding the dive permits were very complex.

In Britain, the men were given a warning and a fine. In Italy, prosecutors
have spent years assembling a case against them.

Giuseppe Rizzo, the state prosecutor in Elba, said: "These divers tricked
their way on to the wreck and submitted false paperwork. They took items
which belong to Italy from the ship and they also damaged the vessel."

If found guilty, Pearson, Sinclair and Dixon, a marine consultant from
Aylsham, Norfolk, face up to four years in jail.

Mr Sinclair said: "I thought this was all over. I'm sorry for what happened
and we did give everything back."

malcolm.moore at telegraph.co.uk

 

Henry L. Molot Q.C.

Senior General Counsel

Constitutional and Administrative Law, Department of Justice

284 Wellington Street, Room 3207

Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H8

(613) 957-4902 (tel.) 941-1937 (fax)

E-Mail: henry.molot at justice.gc.ca

Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada

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