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Four linked to assault on 'science cop' arrested

Will Clem

Police in Beijing have arrested four men in connection with an assault on renowned academic-fraud-buster Dr Fang Shimin last month, state media reported last night.

The suspects included Xiao Chuanguo, a professor of urology, China News Service reported, quoting officials at a Beijing Public Security Bureau press conference.

Xiao was picked up at Shanghai Pudong International Airport at around 5pm yesterday, and charged with causing intentional harm. The naming of Xiao appears to add weight to Fang's allegation that the assault was an act of revenge for his long-running blogging campaign to expose academic fraud and pseudoscience and was connected to an earlier attack on a Caijing magazine editor.

Fang - better known by his blogging pseudonym, Fang Zhouzi the 'science cop' - was ambushed by two men on August 29 while on his way home from a television interview. He said at the time he believed his assailants 'wanted me to die'.

The biochemist said one of his attackers had sprayed a chemical in his face - which smelled like the traditional anaesthetic diethyl ether and made him feel woozy - then the other had swung at him with a hammer.

Fang said he managed to escape and sprinted several hundred metres to his home without being pursued.

Speaking to media the next day, Fang said he believed the attack was linked to an assault on Caijing editor Fang Xuanchang in June.

The two Fangs had previously worked together in 2005 to investigate Xiao, director of the urology department at Wuhan Union Hospital, affiliated to Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Hubei province.

They had alleged Xiao lied about winning an American Urological Association award and questioned the success rate of a new surgical procedure Xiao promoted. Mainland media reported Xiao harboured a grudge against the two Fangs as their reports had prevented him being awarded a post with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Not much of a dent

Fang Shimin says that of more than 900 cases he has exposed, the number to have resulted in punishment is only: 20

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