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FOX TV
engineer charged with smuggling stolen Iraqi paintings, bonds
By CURT ANDERSON WASHINGTON (AP)
-- A television news engineer faces smuggling charges after attempting
to bring into the United States 12 stolen Iraqi paintings, monetary
bonds and other items, federal officials said Wednesday.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria,
Va., charges that Benjamin James Johnson, 27, tried to bring the
paintings into this country last Thursday. They were contained in a
large cardboard box that was examined by Customs agents at Dulles
International Airport outside Washington.
An affidavit filed with the criminal complaint says that Johnson,
who accompanied U.S. troops in Baghdad, gathered up the paintings at a
palace that belonged to Uday Hussein, one of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's sons. The paintings depict Saddam and Uday.
Johnson, who initially told Customs officials he was given the
paintings by Iraqi citizens, said he had planned to keep them
"for decoration" and to provide one to his employer, the
affidavit says. It is U.S. policy that all such items belong to the
Iraqi people.
Johnson worked for six years as a satellite truck engineer for Fox
News Channel, which fired him after learning he had admitted to taking
the paintings, a network statement said.
"This is an unfortunate incident and his supervisor took the
appropriate action for this transgression," the statement added.
The case was one of several to be detailed later Wednesday by
Customs officials, who have seized other Iraqi artworks, weapons and
other materials people have tried to smuggle into this country.
Museums, businesses, government offices and homes were widely
looted in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam's regime. Among the items
stolen were thousands of artworks and other antiquities, some
thousands of years old, from Iraq's vast collections of items from
Assyrian, Mesopotamian, Sumerian and other cultures.
An examination of Johnson's luggage also turned up 40 Iraqi
Monetary Bonds and a visitor's badge from the U.S. embassy in Kuwait.
Johnson, who lives in Alexandria, Va., has not been arrested but is to
appear before a federal magistrate next Tuesday.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press
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