Thefts expose British Museum’s ‘ridiculous’ stance on return of artefacts, says MP

As many as 2,000 items from the British Museum were found to be ‘missing, stolen or damaged’. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press/Shutterstock

An MP has said suspected thefts at the British Museum have exposed the “insulting ridiculousness” of its refusal to return contested artefacts to their country of origin on security grounds.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, believes the 1963 law preventing the return of objects such as the Parthenon marbles and the Benin bronzes should be changed.