Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Looters of Ancient Kilns Sentenced in E. China
Six people were sentenced to jail terms ranging from four to nine years and fined 3,000 to 5000yuan each for robbing relics from ancient kilns in Jingdezhen City,a major porcelain production base in Jiangxi Province, east China.
Six people were sentenced to jail terms ranging from four to nine years and fined 3,000 to 5000yuan each for robbing relics from ancient kilns in Jingdezhen City,a major porcelain production base in Jiangxi Province, east China.
According to a local court, Zhu Huaming, a former official withthe city's administration for industry and commerce, and two of his colleagues, Li Lie and Huang Xiaohua, along with their friend Ye Guide, began in March last year to dig tunnels in the house that Zhu rented, reaching the relics in the royal kilns nearby.
Zhu later hired Wang Keyuan, Hu Baiwu, Wang Yang and Liu Ailianto dig and plunder ancient porcelain relics through the tunnel, but the four were caught by local police on April 16, 2002.
The police later retrieved eight boxes of porcelain pieces fromthe suspects and Zhu and Ye were caught later. Li Lie and Huang Xiaohua are still at large.
During the last three years, local police handled 26 cases involving plundering ancient kiln relics and selling cultural relics, and 66 people were sentenced.
Jingdezhen, known as China's porcelain capital, has a porcelain-making history of more than 1,700 years, and it is one of China's biggest producers and exporters of daily-use porcelain products.
The city has many royal kilns dating back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).Thousands of ancient kiln wares have been found in these kiln relics over the past 20 years.