Missing HK bookseller ‘in good spirits, met wife in China’
HONG KONG — A Hong Kong publisher, whose disappearance from the city raised fears he was abducted by Chinese officials, has met his wife on the mainland and is reportedly “in good spirits”, say Hong Kong police.
HONG KONG — A Hong Kong publisher, whose disappearance from the city raised fears he was abducted by Chinese officials, has met his wife on the mainland and is reportedly “in good spirits”, say Hong Kong police.
Mr Lee Bo was the fifth employee of a Hong Kong publishing house — known for producing salacious titles critical of Chinese leaders — to have gone missing in recent months.
Mr Lee, a British citizen, disappeared on Dec 30 in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, where mainland Chinese law enforcers are barred from operating. Three others went missing in mainland China, while Mr Gui Minhai, who has Swedish nationality, disappeared in Thailand.
Hong Kong police said early yesterday that Mr Lee, 65, had met his wife Sophie Choi at an unspecified location in China the previous day.
“Police have received notification from Lee Bo’s wife that she met with Lee Bo at a guesthouse in mainland China in the afternoon of Jan 23,” a statement said.
“Mrs Lee said Lee Bo is healthy and in good spirits. Now he is assisting an investigation as a witness.”
There was no immigration record of Mr Lee having left Hong Kong last month.
Activists, local media and even pro-Beijing politicians in the city have expressed concern about the case.
They said any abduction would be a serious breach of the “One country, two systems” agreement, under which Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 but was allowed to retain freedoms not available on the mainland.
Many fear Beijing is quietly imposing its authoritarian stamp on the city. AFP