SAN JOSE (AFP) — The price of a translation is keeping the Costa Rican government from retrieving a collection of pre-Columbian objects it claims were stolen by a private collector now living in Germany.
In August 2007, Costa Rica first learned about Leonardo Patterson's collection stored in Spain since 1997. Its more than 1,700 pre-Columbian pieces originate from Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru.
Costa Rica is seeking the recovery of 457 of those objects it says are part of its national heritage.
Patterson's collection is of incalculable value, said Marlin Calvo, head of the Cultural Heritage Protection department at Costa Rica's National Museum.
The objects are "very beautiful, very diverse, and in very good condition," said Calvo.
Patterson, a former Costa Rican diplomat and renowned art collector, was questioned and part of his collection seized by Munich police in April this year, after he took it out of storage in Spain and had it shipped to Germany.
Investigators valued the objects at more than 100 million dollars.
Costa Rica, along with Mexico and Peru, say some of the pieces were stolen and are attempting to recover them, even as Patterson maintains he obtained them in Europe, legally.
Since May, Costa Rican authorities have tried, without success, to reclaim the pieces. Their main problem: the price of a translation.
Germany first requested Costa Rica send them a Letter Rogatory, a formal request to the German court for assistance in the matter. German authorities demanded the letter be handled by an official translator, who charges a fee of almost 500 dollars.
The price was "more than double what the (Costa Rican) court had authorized," Costa Rican prosecutor Andrea Murillo told AFP.
The first Letter Rogatory submitted was so poorly translated that officials in Berlin rejected it, and demanded a replacement.
National Museum director Rocio Fernandez said accounting rules prevented the museum from paying for the translation, and is pushing his nation's Supreme Court for help in expediting the process.
Under Costa Rican law, pre-Columbian objects found after October 6, 1938 are public property and can therefore be claimed by the National Museum, the custodian of the country's treasures.
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