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Al-Araby
Al-Araby
The UK has allegedly refused a request to hand over artefacts ‘stolen’ from Libya more than 200 years ago, according to media reports on Sunday. A London-based lawyer, Mohamed ben Shaban, submitted an official request last month to the Crown Estate of Queen Elizabeth II, asking for columns from the ancient Roman settlement of Leptis Magna in Libya to be returned, Al-Wasat reported. The columns were ‘stolen’ in 1816 from the Augustus Temple in Leptis Magna, whose ruins are located with present-day Khoms, 130 kilometres south of the capital Tripoli, on the Mediterranean coast. British imperial o…