Civic—minded environmentalist or a feloncy convict at large, or both? His Chinese name is 路乞, literally “homeless man on the street”—no kidding, he did collected garbage littered by mindless Chinese pedestrains some times. Unlike professionals, he did that not for a living, but to promote environmentalist awareness among Chinese. His fame as a civic-minded volunteer came overnight and travelled fast. Some people would like to compare him with Norman Bethun, a Canadian highly acclaimed by Chairman Mao for his selfless contribution to China. Before long, his name was everywhere—the local newspaper, TV news, Talkshows. He was even invited by the government to teach officials on environment protection. As an old China hand, his Chinese experience can be traced back to 1960s when he was an evangelist in Hongkong. Fluent both in Candonese and Mandarin Chinese, he told everyone how much he loved everything Chinese: cuisine, hitory, literature and woman—his wife is a Chinese calligrapher. He was a one—time immigration attorney and helped Chinese immigrants get green cards, of course, only the weathy and influencial ones; then he quited his law job and became a teacher in Universities in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province. Thanks both to his civic—mindedness and his media popularity, he was very likely to be a torchbearer for the 2008 Olympic games—could be a great honour for an expat foreigner. So he was the angel for China, everybody should love him—until recently when people found his name, Kenneth Lee Rothey, in the Red Rotice of the Interpol—like at end of a movie, suddenly, everything seemed make sense: the mysterious man is the wanted. Everything he manipulated people to bewlieve as true was but disguise. He committed a crime but somehow escaped, he fled to China, a haven for international criminals. The only oddity doesn’t fit the plot is why he didn’t keep his head down and mouth shut? Seemed he did just the opposite , he wanted people know him. According to the charges he was indicted on March, Mr. Rothey has commited “COUNTERFEITING/FORGERY, MONEY LANDERING, ORGANIZED CRIME/TRANSNATIONAL CRIME, PEOPLE SMUGGLING, TRAFFICKING & ILLEAGAL IMMIGRATION.” If those charges were proved, he would possibly face as high as 20 years in jail. He denied all chrges, "I am not afraid to confront the charges. I did nothing illegal. It''s not my duty to prove my innocence in accordance with US laws," a Chinese newspaper, Southern Weekend quoted him as saying. On the internet, there are a lot of discussion about this disputed man. According to a netizen, malimalihome, who was defrauded by 路乞 or Kenneth Lee Rothey of money. Whether 路乞 is or is not an outlaw on the run is still not sure, one thing for sure is that he was suddenly barred from serving as a Beijing Olympic torchbearer. So far, China and the US do not have an extradition treaty, an extradition case could cost lots of procedures and time before the final settlement. Wu Heping, spokesman of the Ministry of Public Security, on Wednesday confirmed some of Lu''s comments. "We haven''t heard anything about the case and no one has approached us about it".
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