Scholar's missing property recovered

Two suspects, who stole valuable belongings of the late renowned scholar and linguist Ji Xianlin, were detained on Sunday, Haidian police said yesterday morning.

All the missing properties, including 5,000 volumes of precious ancient books, five bronze statues of Ji and some of his photos, were recovered on Sunday.

Ji Cheng, Ji Xianlin's only son, said Li Yujie, the former secretary of Ji Xianlin, hired one suspect named Fang Xianru to look after the apartment where the theft took place. Fang was fired in May and had argued with Ji Cheng because Fang did not want to leave the apartment.

It became a clue to the police after they found that Fang's clothes were taken away with Ji's properties.

The other suspect was Li's adopted daughter.

But Ji Cheng told China News Service that since the two persons could not steal the huge amount of artifacts, they might have had other partners.

Ji Cheng discovered the theft after he visited his father's apartment at Peking University and called the police on Dec 16. The news was released by one of Ji Xianlin's former students on Saturday.

Although the missing property has been recovered, the police did not confirm whether it was a theft or a dispute. This is not the first time that the late scholar's fortunes were reported missing. His fortunes were on the market when he was still alive. A collection of calligraphy and paintings that belonged to Ji was put up for auction at the end of last October.

Hundreds of Ji's letters were sold on a second-hand market in February, but some officials from the university told the Beijing News that the theft of the letters was a trick to fight for Ji's fortune.

Li Yujie said Ji had donated all his fortunes to the university in his will. While alive, Ji had donated 207 valuable ancient paintings to the university.

However, Ji Cheng questioned the procedures of the donation.

Ji said the university had catalogued the donation, but did not release the list. He wanted the university to provide a catalogue of the donation.