The British Library is claiming damages of more than £300,000 (US$440,000) from an Iranian academic who was jailed for two years for stripping pages out of ancient books.
Farhad Hakimzadeh, 60, used a scalpel to remove leaves from the priceless books, which date back to the 16th century and chart the travels of Westerners in the Middle East. Appearing at Wood Green crown court in London for sentencing on Friday, Hakimzadeh, who lives in a £3 million home in Knightsbridge, London, said he suffered from an obsessive compulsive disorder which forced him to remove the pages to complete his own extensive collection.
The court heard that his obsession was such that he left his marital bed on his wedding night to polish his books, but that he also made monetary gain, selling one of his own books with a stolen page inserted into it for more than £2,000.
The court heard that Hakimzadeh’s own library was the fourth best in the world in its field.
“You should have known better,” Judge Peter Ader said. “Once a unique book is damaged it is damaged forever. What you did was a gross breach of trust.”
Hakimzadeh, the director of a publishing firm, nodded as the judge said he would spend a year in prison before release would be considered. He was ordered to pay £7,500 in costs after admitting 14 counts of theft and asking for 20 other offenses to be taken into consideration.
The court heard he had stolen 94 items from the Royal Asiatic Society in 1998, but paid the library £75,000 as compensation. The British Library is pursuing its own civil claim for damages in excess of £300,000 from Hakimzadeh. The claim takes into account the priceless nature of books that cannot be restored.
Prosecutor Christopher Amor said that in 2006 a reader at the British Library had noticed several leaves had been removed from a 17th-century book.
“This began an inquiry, whereby it was discovered a number of pages and maps had been removed from books in the library,” he said.
The library recovered 30 items from Hakimzadeh’s apartment. More than 100 pages from the ancient books have not been found. He also stole from the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
When police searched his apartment and found some of the missing pages, Hakimzadeh said he had bought them in a market.
Kristian Jensen, head of British collections at the library, said that the books from which Hakimzadeh had stolen were mainly about the British colonization and exploration of the Middle East.
Detective Chief Inspector Dave Cobb of the Metropolitan police, said: “[Hakimzadeh] chose unique and rare editions and was therefore able to go undetected for some time. Following the discovery of damage to one volume, an audit of Hakimzadeh’s activities at the libraries revealed the extent of his offending.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS