It was not Beijing after all that was the reason why Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong bookseller, suddenly disappeared. Prior to his re-appearance on Monday on Chinese TV, the suspicion was that Chinese agents abducted him in Thailand.
The alleged abduction was over his being critical of President Xi Jinping. Before his mysterious disappearance, Gui was working on a book that provides details on the president's affairs, bolstering the theory that the government had something to do with his "arrest."
In October, there were reports that Gui vanished from his Thailand apartment. But he actually turned himself to mainland authorities to answer a drunk-driving conviction he escaped 11 years ago, reported Reuters.
Gui said he actually went to China on his own to visit his old mother and to confess that he was involved in a fatal hit-and-run incident in 2003 in which he killed a female college student. In August 2004, he was convicted of drunk driving and sentence to a two-year prison term that was deferred for two years, reported CNN.
Because Gui feared being jailed he fled to Hong Kong in 2004. However, Leung Chun-ying, chief executive of Hong Kong, says that the special administrative region did not receive any notification from China about the bookseller's conviction.
Following the death of his father, Gui decided to return to China and face the music. "I must take legal responsibility for my own actions, and I am willing to accept any punishment," he said. Gui added that because he is a citizen of Sweden, the country's authorities would respect his personal choice and allow him to deal with personal issues.
Although with Gui's interview with CCTV, it confirmed that Beijing had no hand in his "disappearance," four other Hong Kong booksellers are reportedly also missing. Their disappearance had led to street protests.
But CBS reports that Angela Gui, the bookseller's daughter who lives in Britain, refuses to believe his TV confession and believes he was abducted by Chinese agents and forced to return to China. "Even if (the confession) is true, I don't think that is why he is there," she said.