Lee Bo refutes kidnapping, claims by HK associate

Lee Bo, a bookseller in Hong Kong, on Friday denounced claims made by an associate that he had been kidnapped and had turned over customer lists to Chinese mainland authorities, adding that “he and his family just want peace now.”

“Originally, I had no intentions to make further comments, but due to a few remarks made by Lam Wingkee, I had to make some clarifications,” Lee wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.

Lee’s remarks came after Lam Wing-kee, another bookseller, said that Lee was “taken away from Hong Kong” at a press conference on Thursday in Hong Kong, accusing him of passing a list of 400 to 500 customers to mainland authorities.

Lam also stated that he was kidnapped by the mainland’s central investigation team while he was crossing the border to Shenzhen on October 24, 2015.

Hitting back at Lam’s accusation, Lee said he had “never used the computer at Causeway Bay Books” and had “never printed out any lists of customers, much less passing any lists to mainland police.”

He claimed that when he met Lam on Thursday, he never mentioned how he ended up in the mainland from Hong Kong.

Lee Bo, a major shareholder in the book store, faxed a letter to an employee surnamed Chen at Causeway Bay Books bookstore in January, in which he said he was dealing with emergencies and managed to go to the mainland “by his own means” to assist an investigation that might last for a while.

Lee’s disappearance followed those of four other people in Hong Kong’s publishing circle. Among those missing is China-born Swedish national Gui Minhai, who worked for publishing house Mighty Current, which also runs the Causeway Bay bookstore.

Some bookstores in Hong Kong sell books about rumors surrounding senior political figures, making use of a special legal framework that protects them from the consequences publishing such claims would have on the mainland.