Chinese official sentenced to death for stealing relics
An official once in charge of guarding cultural relics has been sentenced to death in China’s biggest antiquities theft case since the start of communist rule in 1949.
Li Haitao was convicted of stealing 259 objects, some of them national treasures, from an imperial villa in Chengde, a city north of Beijing.
Li pocketed €370,500 by selling the relics. He was arrested last year following an investigation that began after pieces from Beijing’s Palace Museum were found at at Christie’s auction house in Hong Kong.
Chinese museums are believed to have lost thousands of centuries-old paintings, porcelains and other antiquities to theft by employees or gangs helped by corrupt officials.
