The Lebanese authorities have returned two icons that were stolen from Greece and sold at an auction in Lebanon.
The Christian religious paintings depict Jesus and Mary and date back to the 18th century. They are two of several artifacts stolen from Greece over the past decade, each worth thousands of dollars.
The icons returned by Lebanon were stolen from an exhibition in Athens in 2016, upon which Greece issued an international notice in hopes of bringing them back.
The Lebanese authorities seized the icons during an auction on Tuesday and handed them over to the Greek Ambassador to Lebanon.
“The person who bought the paintings at the auction in Lebanon was questioned,” a judicial source told AFP, adding that the buyer was about to ship them to Germany with plans to sell them at an international auction there.
An investigation has been launched in Lebanon to uncover the details of the incident. It has yet to be determined who stole the icons and how they reached the country.
*Images used in this article belong to the Greek Embassy in Lebanon
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