The British Museum has been likened to a criminal operation by one of Britain’s most famed barristers, who called the London institution the “world’s largest receiver of stolen property”.

The President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos expressed his support for the immediate return of Parthenon Marbles to the Acropolis Museum in Athens, during the inauguration of the 24th Art Athina at Zappeion, Friday afternoon, noting that was the exact purpose the Museum was built for.

"The conditions [in the British Museum galleries where the Parthenon Sculptures are kept], as shown in photographs published in the press on Wednesday, are very disappointing for the British Museum and extremely insulting for the exhibits, especially when the exhibits are the Parthenon Sculptures. The state of neglect currently presented by the British Museum strengthens Greece's righteous claim for a permanent return of the Sculptures to Athens and their reunification with the Parthenon," Culture Minister Lina Mendoni replied to the press on Wednesday, according to a culture ministry announcement.