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Karl Schembri
The Maltese trader of Mesopotamian artefacts and national antiquities wanted by the police for suspicious cultural heritage items sold on internet is at present in Canada, MaltaToday has learnt.
The police are exchanging information with Canadian authorities about Joseph Schembri and his dealings in antiquities singled out by international heritage watchdogs in a bid to enforce an arrest warrant issued from Malta and circulated via Interpol last month.
Sources say Schembri, who has a residence in Mellieha from where he allegedly sent some of his items auctioned on eBay, is “100 per cent in Canada” – not an unusual destination for the trader given that he is known to operate in the antiques market also from there.
Operating under the pseudonym “qvadricavincente”, Schembri, who is in his sixties, advertised Babylonian cylinders and stamps seals believed by the International Council of Museums to have been looted from Baghdad as well as old Norman coins claimed by Schembri to have been found in Malta, a Roman silver pendant and an Islamic glass bangle dating back to 7-9 century AD.
Schembri had replied to queries about his items made by a MaltaToday journalist through email he sent from Malta, and also agreed to send Norman coins from his Mellieha residence, but on 21 April he left the islands unchecked, even though the police had been alerted about him by the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage.
He last made contact with MaltaToday on 28 April via an email message sent from the UK, claiming that the reports published about him were “all lies” and that the journalist would “pay dearly”.
In the same week in which Schembri was trading his items as qvadricavincente, another trader from Malta was auctioning some very similar Mesopotamian and Maltese artefacts under the pseudonym “bjderstr566”, who on another site is listed as “Joseph Schembri”.
The same bjderstr566 was found on eBay to have operated with three different nicknames since 2003: meliteao, punici and hotelman_20. Meliteao is on eBay’s deals records as having auctioned Roman and Carthaginian arrow heads from Ontario, Canada, while punici is listed as having auctioned cuneiform tablets in 2003, also from Canada.
Last April he was auctioning from Malta a Neo-Babylonian seal dating 900-700 BC and a Persian cylinder seal dating 550 BC. Other artefacts included a 5th Century BC Carthaginian glass head pendant, an Islamic glass vase, a Roman gold stirrup ring, and a Byzantine silver ring.
The Mesopotamian artefacts advertised by the two aliases were on Iraq Museum International’s alert list. The International Council of Museums had also issued alerts via Interpol to track down the trader.
karl@newsworksltd.com
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