Oct. 7 (UPI) — The president of Interpol resigned after being detained by a Chinese anticorruption watchdog, the organization announced Sunday.
The Interpol General Secretariat in Lyon, France received the resignation of the organization’s president, Meng Hongwei, 64, effective immediately, Interpol said in a statement Sunday.
Meng, also serves as China’s vice minister of public security, and his resignation came hours after China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced he had been detained while under investigation for possible criminal activity.
On Saturday, Interpol requested clarification from China’s authorities on Meng’s status as he had been missing since he left Lyon for China on Sept. 29.
Meng’s wife, Grace Meng, reported him missing to French authorities on Thursday after she hadn’t seen him for 10 days and had received threats, including a text message with an image of a knife.
She gave a statement about her husband’s disappearance at a hotel in Lyon, while keeping her back to the camera’s to hide her face as a safety precaution, The New York Times reported.
“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.”
Senior vice-presidnet serving on Interpol’s executive committee Kim Jong Yang of South Korea will serve as acting president and Interpol’s 87th General Assembly will elect a new president in November to serve until 2020.
