By NARUMI OTA/ Correspondent
October 26, 2023 at 18:10 JST
SEOUL--Upholding a previous court ruling, South Korea’s supreme court rejected a South Korean temple’s claim to a disputed Buddhist statue, which was stolen from a Japanese temple more than a decade ago.
In the ruling on Oct. 26, the supreme court affirmed a high court decision that the centuries-old sculpture belongs to Japan’s Kannonji temple, despite having been looted from the Korean Peninsula by Japanese pirates in medieval times.
The high court ruled in February that Kannonji temple had obtained “acquisitive prescription” under Japan's civil law because it had possessed the statue for more than 20 years, the period required to acquire legal ownership.
The seated statue of the Kanzeon Bodhisattva was stolen from Kannonji temple in Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture, in 2012 by South Korean burglars. The statue is designated as a tangible cultural property of the prefecture.
The thieves were apprehended in 2013 and the statue was confiscated by the South Korean government.
Kannonji temple and the Japanese government requested the statue’s return.
However, Buseoksa temple in South Chungcheong province, located in west-central South Korea, claimed that the statue was looted in the 14th century by Japanese “wako” pirates.
Buseoksa temple filed a lawsuit, demanding the statue's return from the South Korean government. It argued that the statue was created as an offering to the South Korean temple around 1330.
On the other hand, Kannonji temple said a monk who founded the Japanese temple received the statue when he traveled to the Korean Peninsula in 1527.
In 2017, a district court acknowledged the South Korean temple’s ownership of the statue, a ruling appealed by the South Korean government.
However, the high court later overturned the district court’s decision in February in favor of the Japanese temple.
The Supreme Court ruling on Oct. 26 finally ended the seven-year court proceedings and cleared the way for the artifact’s return to Japan.
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The statue of the Kanzeon Bodhisattva stolen in 2012 from Kannonji temple in Nagasaki Prefecture by South Korean burglars. (Provided by the Nagasaki prefectural board of education)
