Police in Berlin have recovered stolen diaries and other items belonging to former Beatle John Lennon. A man has been arrested and investigations are ongoing.
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Berlin police arrested a 58-year-old man on Monday for receiving stolen goods belonging to the estate of former Beatle, John Lennon. A further suspect is believed to be living in Turkey. The recovered items included a number of Lennon's personal diaries, the General Prosecutor's Office announced.
The diaries and other items from the musician's estate were reportedly stolen from Lennon's widow Yoko Ono in New York in 2006. They surfaced in Berlin three years ago.
Berlin authorities have been investigating the case for possible links to other fencing and fraud operations. They were able to secure the items as evidence in the ongoing proceedings.
John Lennon's life in 11 songs
Beatle legend John Lennon would have turned 75 on October 9. Here's a look at what his songs reveal about the man.
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'Hello Little Girl'
Born John Winston Lennon on October 9, 1940, the native Liverpudlian kicked off his music career at 15 with The Quarrymen. At the band's second gig, Lennon met the young Paul McCartney and invited him to join the group. Lennon soon wrote his first song: "Hello Little Girl." 14-year-old George Harrison joined the band, followed by Stuart Sutcliffe in 1960. The Beatles were born.
The band, then featuring Pete Best on drums, decamped to Hamburg for a 48-night residency - honing its live show and experiencing first-hand the city's drug culture and liberal attitudes toward sex. "I might have been born in Liverpool - but I grew up in Hamburg," Lennon said. Returning to England, Lennon penned his first hit: "Please Please Me," the title track of their 1963 debut album.
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'A Hard Day's Night'
Lennon was a keen drawer and actor. In 1964 he wrote the title track for "A Hard Day's Night" - the band's debut film. Capturing the crescendo of Beatlemania, it proved a lasting influence over cinema. Lennon also starred in Richard Lester's 1967 black comedy "How I Won the War." In 2009, director Sam Taylor-Wood released "Nowhere Boy" (pictured), a film based on Lennon's adolescence.
Image: Senator Film
'The Ballad of John and Yoko'
Lennon met Cynthia Powell at Liverpool Art Collage in 1957. They married in 1962, and their son Julian was born in 1963. After meeting Japanese visual artist Yoko Ono in 1966, the two officially became a couple in 1968. The media's obsession with the notorious pair set the tone for The Beatles' 1969 No. 1 single "The Ballad of John and Yoko." It was the band's last number No. 1 hit in the UK.
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'Julia'
Lennon had a troubled relationship with women and publically admitted to having physically abused Cynthia. His relationship with Yoko was famously tempestuous. He also had a strained relationship with his mother Julia (portrayed here in "Nowhere Boy" by Anne-Marie Duff). John Lennon largely grew up with an aunt, and Julia was killed in an accident in 1958. "Julia" from 1968 was dedicated to her.
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'Tomorrow Never Knows'
By the mid-1960s, Lennon had become increasingly fascinated by countercultural guru Timothy Leary, Eastern mysticism and psychedelics. "Tomorrow Never Knows" was Lennon's own transcendental paean to LSD: inviting listeners to "turn off your mind, relax and float downstream." Many wrongly assumed that Lennon's surrealist "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was also a loosely veiled acronym for LSD.
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'Revolution 1'
He never shied away from attacking the establishment. With its wailing riff, "Revolution 1" of 1968 became an anti-establishment anthem. By stating that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus in 1966, Lennon caused global controversy, which led to public burnings of Beatles albums. In 1970's "God," Lennon sang: "I don't believe in Jesus…I don't believe in Beatles! I just believe in me. Yoko and me."
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'All You Need is Love'
Despite his rebellious image, Lennon became the most public advocate for world peace at the height of the Vietnam and Cold Wars. Released in 1967, "All You Need Is Love" became the hymn of the "Summer of Love." He and Ono staged a "bed-in" peace protest in Canada in 1969 (pictured), from where Lennon penned one of the most iconic peace anthems of all time, "Give Peace a Chance."
Image: AP
'How Do You Sleep?'
The Beatles split acrimoniously in 1970. In 1971, Paul McCartney wrote "Too Many People" - a swipe at John and Ono's righteous political grandstanding. Deeply insulted, Lennon retaliated that year with "How Do You Sleep" - suggesting the only decent song McCartney ever wrote was "Yesterday." Lennon remained on friendly terms with Ringo Starr and George Harrison and later reconciled with McCartney.
Image: Jim Marshall Pho
'Just Like (Starting Over)'
In 1975, Lennon decided to take a break from music. He'd reunited with Ono after an 18-month separation - what he called his "lost weekend" - and their child Sean was born on October 9, Lennon's 35th birthday. After five years of blissful domestic obscurity, Lennon returned to music with the symbolic single "(Just Like) Starting Over" on October 20, 1980. Nearly two months later, he was murdered.
Image: AP
'Imagine'
Despite Lennon's death, his songs have been kept alive by his legion of fans - and peace monuments have been named in his honor in Reykjavik, New York, Lima, Havana, Liverpool, and beyond. "Imagine," his most enduring and defining song, has been covered by everyone from Madonna to Stevie Wonder and Elton John - and is consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most-played songs of all time.
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"The searches were successful, and further items hidden in the suspect's car, that presumably belonged to John Lennon's estate, were seized, " said the investigators.
