Wife of missing Interpol chief - Mandarin statement
338 views · Published 12 October 2018 · 1:41 · Indexed 7 October 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(7 Oct 2018) The missing president of the police agency Interpol sent his wife an image of a knife immediately before he disappeared in China, which she believes was his way of saying that he was in danger. Grace Meng detailed the chilling final exchange of messages with her husband, Meng Hongwei, to reporters on Sunday in the French city of Lyon, where Interpol is based. Apparently confirming her fears for his safety, China announced less than an hour after she spoke that Meng was under investigation on suspicion of unspecified legal violations, making the vice minister for public security and Interpol chief the latest high-profile official to be swept up in a government crackdown. The disciplinary organ of China's ruling Communist Party said in a brief statement on its website, Meng was "suspected of violating the law and is currently under the monitoring and investigation" of China's new anti-corruption body, the National Supervision Commission. The statement was the first official word on the 64-year-old Meng's fate. In Lyon, meanwhile, his wife was speaking for the first time about his disappearance. She said she hadn't heard from her husband since September 25. Using his Interpol telephone, he sent her the knife image that day, four minutes after he sent a message saying, "Wait for my call." She said the call never came and she does not know what happened to him. Of the knife image, she said: "I think he means he is in danger." She said he was in China when he sent the message. Mrs. Meng was accompanied to the hotel where she held her press conference by two French police officers who were assigned to look after her. She wouldn't speculate on her husband's current whereabouts. She said he regularly travelled back and forth between Lyon and China for his job. He had been on a three-country tour, to Norway, Sweden and Serbia, for Interpol before his latest trip back to China, she said. Before he shared the knife image, she said she had sent him a photo of two animal figurines, one of a bear and another of a horse, meant to represent their two children; one of them loves horses, she said, and the other "looks like the bear." She said they were in daily contact during his trip before he went missing in China. She would not allow reporters to show her face, saying she feared for her own safety and the safety of her children. "From now on, I have gone from sorrow and fear to the pursuit of truth, justice and responsibility toward history," she said. "For the husband whom I deeply love, for my young children, for the people of my motherland, for all the wives and children's husbands and fathers to no longer disappear." Meng is China's vice minister of public security as well as president of the International Criminal Police Organisation. The Lyon-based international police agency said Saturday it had used law enforcement channels to inquire with China about Meng's status. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/3de9c875c6e13bc5d2877346b0be5ce4
