Police mobilise in neighbourhood where missing Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo was last seen
Officers tight-lipped after probing two premises, including Chai Wan warehouse
More than a week after Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo vanished – apparently without official trace – police revisited the bookstore and publishing warehouse at the centre of the investigation.
Detectives were seen entering two premises of Causeway Bay Books — which specialises in the publication and sale of books critical of the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders – a bookstore in Lockhart Road and a warehouse it uses in Chai Wan.
They left both places tight-lipped some time later.
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It is understood that detectives who went to the bookstore were accompanied by an unknown male who is helping them with their inquiries.
The apparent ratcheting up of police activity came amid public disquiet over the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Lee – who was last seen eight days ago – and four of his colleagues in the preceding few weeks.
Hong Kong police and immigration have said there was no official record of Lee leaving Hong Kong and his wife’s statement that he had contacted her from Shenzhen to tell her he was “helping with an investigation” has sparked speculation that mainland security agents may have been involved in some capacity.
It has also led to high-level interventions from senior officials in Beijing, Taiwan and London as questions have arisen over jurisdictional powers, nationality – Lee is a British citizen – and Hong Kong’s position regarding the city’s post-colonial constitutional framework.
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The bookstore, which is frequented by mainland visitors for books on political gossip and scandals that are banned across the border, remained closed to the public yesterday.
At the warehouse, officers went door to door around the block on which the warehouse was located, asking workers, security guards and minibus drivers whether they had seen or heard anything unusual or suspicious on Wednesday night last week.
Meanwhile, Albert Ho Chun-yan, chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, said the group was planning to report the case to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances to urge Beijing for an answer.
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