The John Paul Getty Museum's case for withholding ancient artefacts is getting weaker, Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli claimed Tuesday.
Rutelli told reporters that the Getty's argument for hanging on to a piece at the centre of the high-profile antiquities row was "crumbling."
"Their case is crumbling because it just doesn't stand up," he said, referring to a marble Venus from the Ancient Greek colony of Morgantina near Enna, Sicily.
According to the minister, "media probes have corroborated what the Carabinieri (art police) have always said, that it left Italy illegally".
Rutelli said the Getty's claim to the piece rested on "risible" evidence that it once belonged to a tobacconist in a village on Italy's border with Switzerland.
"It's such a clear falsification (that) it's surprising a great institution like the Getty is still dragging its heels," Rutelli said.
The Los Angeles museum, reputedly the world's richest, last month pulled out of an accord on returning dozens of antiquities.
The deal was to have been the third with major US institutions.
The Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts have agreed to return key parts of their classical collections in return for loans of equivalent value.
Rutelli reiterated that Italy will not rest until "all the works are restored to us".
He thanked the Carabinieri, "without whose formidable work such achievements would not have been possible".
Over the last five years, he said, the police's heritage protection unit has recovered 100,000 stolen works of art and 350,000 looted artefacts, as well as impounding 175,000 fakes.
Rutelli was speaking at the formal changing of the guard at the head of the force, as Colonel Gianni Nistri took over from General Ugo Zottin.
