LYON, France (AP) — The wife of the former Interpol president who disappeared in China revealed that she had received a threatening phone call warning…
LYON, France (AP) — The wife of the former Interpol president who disappeared in China revealed that she had received a threatening phone call warning of agents coming for her — but said she would keep fighting for information about her husband’s fate.
In her first one-on-one interview since Meng Hongwei went missing, Grace Meng denied bribery allegations against her high-profile husband, and told The Associated Press that speaking out about his disappearance was placing her «in great danger.»
Meng Hongwei — who is also China’s vice minister of public security — vanished while on a trip home to China late last month. A long-time Communist Party insider with decades of experience in China’s sprawling security apparatus, the 64-year-old is the latest high-ranking official to fall victim to a sweeping purge against allegedly corrupt or disloyal officials under President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian administration.
Speaking to the AP late Monday at a hotel in Lyon, France, where Interpol is based, Grace Meng said her husband had been gone for more than a week on a trip to China when she got a threatening call on her mobile phone from a man speaking in Chinese.
She had just put their two young boys to bed at home in Lyon and recalled that her last contact with her husband was by text message, on Sept. 25, when Meng wrote «wait for my call» and sent her an emoji image of a knife after traveling back to China. But Meng did not call.
Instead, a man who didn’t identify himself did.
«You listen but you don’t speak,'» she described him as saying. He continued: «We’ve come in two work teams, two work teams just for you.»
She said the only clue the caller gave about his identity was saying that he used to work for Meng, suggesting that the man was part of China’s security apparatus. He also said he knew where she was.
As a result, Grace Meng is now under French police protection.
By speaking out about her husband’s fate, she has taken a step practically unheard of in Chinese politics, where such moves are seen as confrontational.
