Who Owns Stolen Treasure

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jKUtKujvUeji2h3nMXaF4DseM_zgD98K0PBG2

In the above article forces me to raise the question: who owns stolen treasure? Is it the people who own the ship that carried (Spain), the carriers themselves-or their descendents (the merchants who were aboard the ship), the finders (the Odyessey Company), or the people it was originally stolen from (the Latin-Americans)? I laugh because the constant and very selective interpretation of history involved in this case really bothers me.

The Spanish like to pretend it is theirs, even though they stole it during centuries of bloody and brutal occupation of Latin America. They have never paid reparations, and if we really want to get down to it, all this stuff should go back to Latin America. Right now, there are cases all over the world of newly influential countries such as China requesting a return of the cultural artifacts looted by soldiers of imperialist powers. Instead, though, a judge just said that Spain gets to keep it, saying that the thieves keep the loot that they lost fair and square and did not even look for. Nice.