While the whereabouts of co-owner Lee Po remains a mystery, Causeway Bay Books was reportedly set to reopen today after being closed for more than a month.
Revealing this to Radio Television Hong Kong, Lee’s wife Sophie Choi Ka-ping did not comment further on his return to Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, the store’s gates have been plastered with news clippings, pictures and messages of support, with a scribbled “Closed” sign and notes with such messages as “Never rest” and “Not afraid”.
There has been no indication on the shopfront or its website of when the premises might reopen, reports the South China Morning Post.
Lee, 65, a co-owner of publishing house Mighty Current which runs the bookstore, was last seen at the company’s Chai Wan warehouse in the evening of December 30. He called his wife from a Shenzhen phone number and told her in Putonghua that he was helping with an investigation. It later emerged there was no record of Lee leaving the city.
His disappearance came about two months after four of his business associates went missing – Gui Minhai, while on holiday in October, and Cheung Ji-ping, Lam Wing-kei and Lui Por later that month in Shenzhen.
There has been speculation that Lee, a British passport holder, may have been abducted by mainland law-enforcement agents in Hong Kong.