Missing Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo is on the mainland, Hong Kong police said today quoting officers from China’s Guangdong province.

Five Hong Kong-based booksellers who deal in publications critical of high-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials have disappeared recently.

“Police received a reply letter from the Interpol Guangdong Liaison Office of Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department this evening (January 18) saying that ‘Lee Po is in the Mainland’,” Hong Kong police said in a statement released late yesterday.

Police confirmed to dpa today that the man is the publisher who was reported missing by his wife after last being seen on Dec 30 outside the Mighty Current publishing house. His name can also be written as Lee Bo.

This is the second of the booksellers that Chinese authorities have said are now in mainland China.

Late Sunday, clips of Gui Minhai, another of the booksellers, was shown in a CCTV report claiming responsibility for his part in the drunk-driving death of a 20-year-old college student. The 56-year-old Swedish national disappeared while on vacation in Thailand.

The disappearances have stoked fear that Hong Kong is no longer a safe haven for anyone who holds dissenting views.

Lee Bo is thought to have been abducted from the streets of Hong Kong.

While his wife had withdrawn her missing person’s report after Lee reportedly made contact via letters and a video saying he was assisting in investigations voluntarily, earlier reports said his travel documents remained at home.

If he was taken from the streets of Hong Kong, his abduction would be in violation of Hong Kong law. Chinese law enforcement does not have jurisdiction in the city. The former British colony retains its own set of laws as part of an agreement that ceded Hong Kong to China in 1997.

Hong Kong police have written to the Guangdong authorities to seek a meeting with Lee to determine what happened.

The information from the Guangdong authorities also contained a letter from Lee addressing the Hong Kong governments similar to a letter received by his wife on Jan 17.

Three men who disappeared while travelling in southern China remain missing. They are Lui Por, Cheung Ji-ping and Lam Wing-kei.

- dpa