U.S. returns pre-Columbian artifacts to Panama

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ninety-nine pre-Columbian artifacts were returned to Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli by U.S. customs officials on Wednesday after an investigation that has lasted over a decade.

The items, mostly pottery and valued at approximately $100,000, had been smuggled into the country by a university professor in Oregon. The professor forfeited the artifacts in 2005 as a part of a plea deal.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said the repatriation took a long time because of long delays in resolving the criminal case and processing the items.

"In Spanish there is an expression that says ... justice sometimes comes a little late, but it comes," Martinelli said at a news conference at ICE headquarters. "This is a very good day to celebrate the return of these ornaments."

Martinelli will meet with President Barack Obama on Thursday to discuss the long-delayed U.S.-Panama free trade pact, which has yet to be sent to Congress, as well as a Central American security initiative aimed at bolstering law enforcement in a region hit by drug violence.

"We are very happy and very satisfied by not only receiving these ornaments, but by the excellent ... special relationship that we have with the U.S.," said Martinelli, who met earlier with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Taken together, the artifacts represent a wide sample of most of the pottery styles in pre-Columbian Panama from the period A.D. 1 through 1500, according to an agency statement. Native American artisans made this type of pottery by hand and without the use of a throwing wheel.

U.S. authorities investigated the painting after the U.S. Customs Service received a tip from Panamanian investigators in 1998 that a Panama Canal Commission employee was smuggling pre-Columbian artifacts out of Panama into the United States.

Since 2007, ICE has returned around 2,300 cultural objects to 18 countries.

(Reporting by Wendell Marsh; editing by Jerry Norton)