From The Southern Weekend (in Chinese), translated by EastSouthWestNorth:
Why was the academician’s stolen computer returned safe and sound ten days later? Were the “motorcycle robbers” acting “in collusion” with the police? After Southern Daily reported the robbery case of academician Zhong Nanshan on June 14, netizens were full of doubts.
In the Southern Daily report, academician Zhong Nanshan who had contributed immensely towards fighting SARS and avian flu told the media at an infectious disease conference on June 13 that he was robbed of his laptop computer in Guangzhou last month but he was grateful that the police helped him find that computer in ten days’ time. So a certain theme arose at a number of popular BBS forums: “After academician Zhong Nanshan filed a police report, the police told their informers that this was a big case because it was academician Zhong’s notebook computer that was stolen. The gang of thieves was scared and returned the computer on the same day. The police did not want the outside world to know that they were closely connected to the gang, and so they waited ten days before returning the computer to academician Zhong. This proved that they spent lots of time and effort on the case and avoided any linkage between police and thieves.”
In the face of these confusing accusations, a Xinhua netizen said: “The Guangdong police is obliged to disclose the process by which the case was solved in order to clear things up.”
Our reporter therefore investigated how the case occurred and how it was solved. [Full Text]
