An unknown number of antiquities stolen from Italy in the 1970s may be auctioned off in London instead of being returned to Italy, former culture minister Francesco Rutelli warned on Thursday.
Rutelli slammed his successor, Sandro Bondi, for ''not taking sufficient action'' to ensure that lost Italian treasures will not be among pieces from the Symes collection to be sold at Bonhams on October 15.
The minister revealed that he had begun secret negotiations in May 2007 to return hundreds of Italian works in the massive collection that belonged to British antiquarian Robin Symes before it fell into the hands of liquidators in 2005.
The negotiations - which passed to Bondi's ministry - have recently ''come to a complete halt'', Rutelli said, adding that he had passed records of the process to a Rome prosecutor.
''Either the politicians or the judges must take the initiative to intervene. It would be an international scandal to slacken the cultural policy that has (succeeded in) taking off the market works of suspect provenance,'' he said.
Symes, whose collection comprises some 17,000 items, was a leading international antiques trader in the 1970s - a decade in which tomb raiders were particularly active in Italy.
As one of the main dealers for museums, he handled a number of high-profile artefacts including the Morgantina Venus, a 5th century BC Greek statue of Aphrodite that the Getty Museum in Los Angeles is due to return to Italy in 2010.
Italian prosecutors in the ongoing trial of former Getty curator Marion True and an American antiquities dealer, Robert Hecht - who are accused of knowingly acquiring smuggled artefacts - also investigated Symes' ties to the pair, as well as those with Rome-based dealer and trafficker Giacomo Medici.
No charges were brought against Symes.
When liquidators were brought in in 2005 following the failure of Symes' business, an Italian team was asked to help certify the authenticity of certain works in the collection.
It examined some of the collection's 33 warehouses and discovered vast numbers of artefacts it alleged had been stolen from Italian sites.
Rutelli campaigned hard to have stolen Italian antiquities in museums across the world returned to Italy during his stint as culture minister, successfully negotiating deals with the the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Getty.
Items from the Symes collection to be sold at auction next week include Roman fresco fragments, busts, statues and vases.
The entire collection is estimated to be worth around 160 million euros.
