Cambodia has welcomed home more than 70 historic artefacts looted during decades of war, marking one of the country’s most significant cultural restitutions in recent years.

At a ceremony in Phnom Penh’s National Museum on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Hun Many unveiled 74 items returned from the United Kingdom under a 2020 agreement with the family of the late British art dealer Douglas Latchford.

The collection includes monumental sandstone sculptures, refined bronze works and ritual objects dating from the pre‑Angkorian era through the height of the Angkor Empire. Many pieces were prised from temple walls during Cambodia’s civil wars and the Khmer Rouge’s brutal rule in the 1970s and 1980s, before being trafficked abroad.

Latchford, once a prominent antiquities dealer, was indicted in New York in 2019 on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy linked to smuggling Cambodian artefacts. He died the following year, aged 88, before facing trial. His family has since agreed to return hundreds of items, with major repatriations already completed in 2021 and 2023.

“This substantial restitution represents one of the most important returns of Khmer cultural heritage in recent years,” Cambodia’s Culture Ministry said, describing it as a step forward in preserving the nation’s ancestral legacy.

The repatriation reflects a wider global trend, with museums and collectors increasingly pressured to return artefacts taken during conflict or colonial rule. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has already sent back several Cambodian treasures, alongside similar returns to countries such as Syria, Iraq and Greece.

Hun Many, younger brother of Prime Minister Hun Manet, said the return brought “warmth and joy” to Cambodians, symbolising the country’s recovery after decades of turmoil.

For Cambodia, the artefacts are more than museum pieces: they are fragments of identity, reconnecting the nation with its past and reinforcing its place as guardian of Angkor’s enduring legacy.

-2026-03-01

British art dealer Douglas Latchford

You mean British thief.