Matthew Kalman reports on the sentencing hearing this week for Oded Golan, convicted of three minor charges in connection with the James Ossuary case.
The Antiquities Authority, backed by State Attorney Moshe Lador, has launched a desperate rearguard action to reverse its humiliating defeat in a seven-year trial that ended with the acquittal of an Israeli collector accused of faking the burial box of [James] the brother of Jesus and an inscribed stone [Jehoash] tablet that may have hung on the wall of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. The latest twist came during a routine sentencing hearing at the Jerusalem District Court last Tuesday, two months after the stunning collapse of the high-profile prosecution. Prosecutor Dan Bahat revealed that the Antiquities Authority was determined not to return dozens of items, including the burial box and the stone tablet to their owner, despite his acquittal on all the relevant charges. Bahat compared it to returning drugs to a dealer acquitted on a technicality.
The rest of the article indicates that the IAA is playing the role of the sore loser but the judge isn’t falling for their dirty tricks.
