China says Interpol’s missing president under investigation

Interpol said Saturday it has made a formal request to China for information about the agency’s missing president, a senior Chinese security official who seemingly vanished while on a trip home.

The Lyon-based international police agency said it used law enforcement channels to submit its request to China about the status of Meng Hongwei. Its statement said the agency “looks forward to an official response from China’s authorities to address concerns over the president’s well-being.” France has launched its own investigation. French authorities say he boarded a plane and arrived in China but his subsequent whereabouts are unknown.

Meanwhile, the disciplinary organ of China’s ruling Communist Party said late yesterday that Meng is under investigation on suspicion of unspecified legal violations.

The party’s watchdog for graft and political disloyalty said that the Interpol president is “suspected of violating the law and is currently under the monitoring and investigation” of China’s new anti-corruption body, the National Supervision Commission.

In addition to his Interpol post, Meng is also a vice minister for public security in China.

Previously, Interpol had said that reports about Meng’s disappearance were “a matter for the relevant authorities in both France and China.”

Meng’s duties in China would have put him in close proximity to former leaders, some who fell afoul of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign. Meng likely dealt extensively with former security chief Zhou Yongkang, who is now serving a life sentence for corruption.

The Hong Kong newspaper said Meng was “taken away” for questioning upon landing in China last week by what it said were “discipline authorities.” The term usually describes investigators in the ruling Communist Party who probe graft and political disloyalty.

Meng is the first person from China to serve as Interpol’s president, a post that is largely symbolic but powerful in status. Because Interpol’s secretary general is responsible for the day-to-day running of the agency’s operations, Meng’s absence may have little operational effect.

The organization links up police officials from its 192 member states, who can use Interpol to disseminate their search for a fugitive or a missing person. Only at the behest of a country does the information go public via a “red notice,” the closest thing to an international arrest warrant. “Yellow notices” are issued for missing persons.

Meng has held various positions within China’s security establishment, including as a vice minister of public security since 2004.

His appointment as Interpol president in 2016 alarmed some human rights organizations, fearful it would embolden China to strike out at dissidents and refugees abroad. His term as Interpol president runs until 2020. MDT/AP

Wife says Meng sent knife image as danger signal

THE WIFE of the missing president of Interpol says her husband sent her an image of a knife before he disappeared during a trip to their native China. Making her first public comments on the mystery surrounding Meng Hongwei’s whereabouts, Grace Meng told reporters in Lyon, France yesterday she thinks the knife was her husband’s way of trying to tell her he was in danger. She says she has had no further contact with him since the message that was sent on Sept. 25. She says four minutes before Meng shared the image, he had sent a message saying, “Wait for my call.” She says she hasn’t heard from him since and does not know what happened to him.