The Libyan embassy in Madrid announced on Saturday the receipt of 12 looted and smuggled artifacts from Libya after a Spanish judicial ruling.

The embassy said in a statement that this came through "the efforts of the Libyan Attorney General's Office combined with the Department of Antiquities and a team formed to legally recover antiquities smuggled to Spain."

It added that Libyan efforts led to the "first of its kind ruling" and the handing over the items to the embassy, according to the statement.

In October, the Libyan embassy in Paris received an artifact smuggled and held in France since 2016.