By: Jamil al-Jadabi almotamar.net - SANAA-A government source Thursday revealed to almotamar.net involvement of ambassador of a European country to Yemen in an attempt for smuggling seven Yemeni pieces of antiquities but Yemeni security authorities aborted the smuggling in the last minutes of shipping them via Sana’a International Airport to the country of the ambassador.

The source made it clear that a Yemeni shipping company “Jass” had arranged shipping of the antiquities in parcels of the ambassador but security authorities managed to abort the operation with the help authority of fighting antiquities smuggling.
While the security embarked on investigation with representative of the company almotamar.net learnt the Antiquities Authority demanded interrogating of three others of the company’s officials. The antiquities planned to be smuggled included stone and earthenware utensils dated to Saba civilization of Yemen.
Security believe that the ambassador had bought the antiquities from persons bringing them from governorates of Al-Jawf and Marib, as part of continued process of smuggling antiquities and random digging in historical sites by persons there.
Jass shipping company is the second Yemeni company proved to have been involved in attempts to smuggle antiquities to outside the country. Months before the Yemeni security authorities had foiled smuggling of historical manuscripts by the same method through the Yemenpack airfreight company but the side involved in that attempt was the Iraqi embassy.
A circulation by the antiquities Authority the beginning of this year, almotamar.net obtained a copy of it, had warned all air, sea and land shipping companies of shipping any Yemeni historical piece and demanded to be informed on that when they discover such pieces.