Trafficked Cambodian artefacts returned from US

Buddhist monks in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh chanted blessings and threw flowers on Thursday to welcome 14 trafficked artefacts repatriated from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The Angkorian artworks, which included a 10th century goddess sandstone statute and a large Buddha head from the 7th century, were stolen by antiquities trafficker Douglas Latchford before ending up in New York.

Cambodian Culture Minister said more than 50 stolen artifacts would return to Cambodia from the United States in the near future. Thousands of statues and sculptures are believed to have been trafficked from Cambodia from the mid-1960s to the 1990s.