Ai Weiwei’s family members have told BBC Chinese they know nothing of his reported release Detained Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has been freed on bail, state media report.
He was released late on Wednesday after pleading guilty to charges of tax evasion, Xinhua news agency said.
His family members have told BBC Chinese they had seen reports of his release, but had not heard from Mr Ai.
An outspoken critic of China’s human rights record, Mr Ai’s arrest in April prompted a global campaign for his release.
He was detained as he boarded a Beijing flight bound for Hong Kong.
Perhaps most famous for helping design the Bird’s Nest stadium that became the centre-piece for Beijing’s 2008 Olympics, he was held at a secret location without access to a lawyer.
Beijing alleges the artist had evaded taxes and destroyed evidence; his supporters say the charges are motivated by his activism.
Xinhua reported that the 54-year-old – who, it said, was suffering from a “chronic illness” – had offered to repay the taxes and would be released because of “his good attitude in confessing his crimes”.
Police said the Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd, the company that handles the business aspects of Mr Ai’s career, had evaded “a huge amount of taxes and intentionally destroyed accounting documents”, said Xinhua.
China’s foreign ministry previously said that Mr Ai was under investigation for “economic crimes”.
It insisted that his arrest – which came amid one of China’s biggest clampdowns on activists in years and was condemned by Western governments – had “nothing to do with human rights or freedom of expression”.
While the artist’s release has yet to be confirmed, Beijing has clearly been under enormous pressure to free him, says the BBC’s Damian Grammaticas in Beijing.
The case had generated criticism from the international community that China was breaking its own laws by holding Mr Ai in secret without access to a lawyer, adds our correspondent.
The circumstances of one of Mr Ai’s relatives, his accountant and driver, who were detained at the same time as the artist, remain unknown.
Ai Weiwei gained international recognition in the early 1980s for his monolithic brick sculptures.
Last October, he unveiled a carpet of 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds at London’s Tate Modern, which he said questioned the role of an individual in society.
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