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Berlin police widen hunt for stolen John Lennon belongings

German police are trying to recover numerous items stolen from the estate of the late Beatle John Lennon, prosecutors said Thursday, after the arrest of a suspect accused of handling the objects.

Published: 23 November 2017 17:16 CET

Berlin police widen hunt for stolen John Lennon belongings

John Lennon. Photo: DPA

A 58-year-old man identified as Erhan G. was arrested in Berlin on Monday on suspicion of dealing in the stolen goods.

Prosecutors said he has “given a broad confession” in the case and provided information about stolen personal items from Lennon that remain undiscovered.

Police had on Tuesday announced the recovery of around 100 items, including diaries, a cigarette case and two pairs of Lennon's trademark round spectacles.

One of the three diaries from the haul contains an entry penned by Lennon on December 8, 1980 — hours before he was shot dead by a disturbed fan outside his Manhattan apartment building.

But numerous items are still missing.

“Among those we are looking for are a sculpture, walking sticks as well as several personal recordings and other writings,” said prosecutors in a statement.

The objects were allegedly stolen by the driver of Lennon's widow Yoko Ono from her New York home in 2006. They were discovered this year at a bankrupt Berlin auction house.

The driver, Koral Karsan, lives in Turkey and is out of reach of German law enforcement.

The former chauffeur worked for Ono from 1995 to 2006. He already spent 60 days in jail in 2007 in the United States for trying to blackmail Ono.

Along with co-Beatle Paul McCartney, Lennon wrote some of the Fab Four's biggest hits including “Help” and “With a Little Help from My Friends”, before the band split in 1970.

His possessions have since become collectors' items.

A leather jacket supposedly worn by Lennon sold for £10,400 (€11,700) at an auction in England in February.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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