Artifacts looted from Syrian national museums seen in the office of a Lebanese official

Saad Fansa, co-founder and governing board member of El-Adiyat Association for the Protection of Antiquities in Damascus, said that the pieces displayed behind Machnouk are looted from the city of Palmyra. These pieces are heads of Palmyra statues, such as the head of a small statue representing theatrical masks.

Fansa told Enab Baladi that these statues were stolen from the Palmyra Museum during 2014 and 2015, that is when Nohad Machnouk held the position of Lebanese Minister of Interior twice. This contradicts Machnouk’s story that the statues he had ten years ago and “are registered at the Culture Ministry according to the standard laws, some of which ban their transport out of Lebanon.”