Chinese court tells Dutch collector to return Buddha statue in ongoing 3-year battle

Image courtesy of Jakarta Post/Asian News Network

BEIJING, Dec 6 (AP): A Chinese court has ordered a Dutch art collector to hand over a Buddha statue in the latest twist in a three-year-old legal battle with villagers who say it was stolen from a temple.

Residents of Yangchun, a village in the southeastern province of Fujian, say the statue is a 1,000-year-old relic that holds the mummified remains of a monk and disappeared in 1995.