Former Minister of Defense Zeina Akar Adra of the Hassan Diab government and her husband Jawad Adra would be the subject of an Interpol red card filed by the Iraqi authorities for concealing antiques. Some of these pieces would be exhibited in the Nabu museum opened in 2018 in Héri in northern Lebanon.
Red notices concern fugitives wanted in the context of prosecution or to serve their sentence. A red notice involves asking law enforcement agencies around the world to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or other legal proceedings. .
As soon as it opened, the Nabu Museum was controversial over the alleged fraudulent acquisition of some of its masterpieces from the looting of sites and museums in Iraq and Syria during the civil war. This controversy concerns in particular the famous Sumerian tablets, numbering 136, which are said to have originated from the Irisagrig site between 2003 and 2009 . The Iraqi government is reportedly calling for the return of these artifacts.
On the other hand, articles published by the Lebanese press , indicated that another part of its collections – including the famous Phoenician funerary stelae – even came from the archaeological site of Tyr El Bass looted in the 1990s. Archaeologists also noted the presence of objects from Yemen, another country in conflict.
For his part, the private owner of this museum relies on Decree 3065 of 12/03/2016, adopted at the end of the mandate of the former minister Roni Arayji. This decree legalizes their private collections on condition of declaring them to the competent authorities, a text tailor-made for the benefit of the Nabu Museum and its owners, activists believed at the time. However, it expired in March 2019.
Jawad Adra had also defended himself from any illegal acquisition, indicating that it was a cabal launched against him and believing that his action had saved many coins. He would thus have refused to return the archaeological artefacts and would have asked for the help of the Lebanese authorities.
For their part, the Iraqi authorities and more specifically the Iraqi Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities, Dr Hassan Nazim, consider the return of the pieces necessary and have asked for the assistance of Interpol in order to force the couple to return them. .
