the times | Saturday November 14 2020 1GM 29
News
Bronzes to the planned
Edo Museum of West
African Art but said
that it was prevented
under UK law from
deaccessioning objects
for permanent return
to their native country.
The museum said
that it hoped the
archaeology project
would address the
“painful history of the
invasion and
destruction of Benin
City by British forces”.Looted bronzes may
return to royal city
The new museum is
being built on the royal
site of Benin City, left
T
he British
Museum is to
help excavate
the remains of
the royal sites in Benin
City, which it now
acknowledges were
“ransacked” and
“looted” by British
forces in 1897 (David
Sanderson writes).
A joint project with a
Nigerian team to
investigate the site was
announced yesterday
in preparation for a
new museum to house
the world’s most
comprehensive display
of “Benin Bronzes”.
About 900 Benin
items, including the
renowned Bronzes, are
held by the British
Museum. Thousands of
other objects are
scattered across
collections in Europe
and the United States.
Godwin Obaseki, the
governor of Edo state,
said that the Black
Lives Matter protests
had added “urgency”
to conversations about
returning artefacts
seized during the
colonial era.
The British Museum
has discussed loaningADJAYE ASSOCIATES; BRITISH MUSEUMAmber Heard has condemned “paid”
social media campaigns to have her
dropped from the sequel of Aquaman,
her biggest hit, after she accused John-
ny Depp of abuse.
Heard, speaking for the first time
since Depp lost his High Court libel
case against The Sun this month for
describing him as a “wife beater”, con-
firmed that she will appear as Mera in
Aquaman 2.
A petition calling for Warner Bros,
the film’s distributor, to drop her has
passed more than a million signatures
since the studio required Depp to re-
sign last week from the Fantastic Beasts
franchise, the Harry Potter spin-off in
which he played Gellert Grindelwald,
an evil wizard.
Heard, 34, is suing her former hus-
band for $100 million, accusing him of
orchestrating “an online smear cam-
paign” to have her fired from Aquaman
2 and as a model for L’Oreal. She claims
that Adam Waldman, Depp’s Holly-
wood lawyer, “is publicly associated
with Russian individuals with the capa-
bility to organise such attacks”. Details
of the alleged harassment campaign,
revealed by The Times, include Twitter
“bots” being used to “smear and harass”
Heard.
The actress told Entertainment Week-
ly that the social media abuse had not
deterred Warner Bros from recasting
her. Aquaman took more than
$887 million at the box office in
2018 and became the most
successful film in the DC Extend-
ed Universe franchise. “Paid
rumours and paid campaigns
on social media don’t dictate
[casting decisions] because
Depp wants me
fired, says Heard
David Brown they have no basis in reality,” Heard
said.
Depp, 57, who played Captain Jack
Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, de-
scribed the High Court ruling as “sur-
real” and said his “life and career will
not be defined by this moment in time”.
His lawyer, Jenny Afia, of Schillings,
is expected to file an appeal against the
judgment, which she called “as per-
verse as it is bewildering”. She accused
Mr Justice Nicol of having relied on
Heard’s evidence and of disregarding
the “mountain of counterevidence”.
In a US court document the actress’s
lawyers claimed that Depp “is attempt-
ing to defame Ms Heard and interfere
with her reputation, career and liveli-
hood through an online smear cam-
paign he has organised and orchestrat-
ed”. They said Depp described his
former wife as a “disgusting pig”, an “in-
human scum-filled sickfish” and a
“whore c***”, which “laid the ground-
work for the smear campaign he spear-
heads today”. Heard’s lawyers also
claim that Depp “through his agents
and attorneys has also attempted to
intimidate and threaten witnesses to
attempt to influence their testimony”.
Mr Waldman has denied that he or
Depp had any involvement in “creating
a Russian bot army”. He said: “Amber
Heard and her confederates don’t like
the looming consequences of her noto-
rious abuse hoax. Lies often require
new lies to survive. So Ms Heard
and her legal brain-trust re-
cently hatched a new hare-
brained scheme.”
The libel trial was told
that Depp had sent a text
to his assistant saying: “I
want her replaced on
that WB (Warner Bros)
film”. Depp told the
High Court: “I was feel-
ing quite bitter.”
Amber Heard is due to
start filming Aquaman 2