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 hi<\/b>
\nLYON, FRANCE \u2013 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 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\u2019s ruling Communist Party said in a brief statement on its website, Meng was \u201csuspected of violating the law and is currently under the monitoring and investigation\u201d of China\u2019s new anti-corruption body, the National Supervision Commission.
The statement was the first official word on the 64-year-old Meng\u2019s fate. In Lyon, meanwhile, his wife was speaking for the first time about his disappearance.
She said she hadn\u2019t heard from her husband since Sept. 25. Using his Interpol telephone, he sent her the knife image that day, four minutes after he sent a message saying, \u201cWait for my call.\u201d
She said the call never came and she does not know what happened to him.
Of the knife image, she said: \u201cI think he means he is in danger.\u201d She said he was in China when he sent the message.
\u201cThis is the last, last message from my husband,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter that I have no call and he disappeared.\u201d
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\u2019t speculate on her husband\u2019s current whereabouts. She said he regularly traveled 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 \u201clooks like the bear.\u201d
She said they were in daily contact during his trip before he went missing in China.
Asked if she believed that he has been arrested, Grace Meng said: \u201cIn China, what happened, I\u2019m not sure.\u201d
She would not allow reporters to show her face, saying she feared for her own safety and the safety of her children. Her voice trembled with emotion as she read a prepared statement.
\u201cFrom now on, I have gone from sorrow and fear to the pursuit of truth, justice and responsibility toward history,\u201d she said. \u201cFor the husband whom I deeply love, for my young children, for the people of my motherland, for all the wives and children\u2019s husbands and fathers to no longer disappear.\u201d
The appeal by Meng\u2019s wife for justice and fairness echoed pleas from the families of scores of people who fell afoul of the Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping\u2019s rule. Some of them might have been pursued by Chinese authorities under Meng\u2019s watch.
Such targets, who have been subject to arbitrary detention and made unexplained disappearances, include pro-democracy activists, human rights lawyers, officials accused of graft or political disloyalty and the estimated 1 million ethnic minority Muslims who have vanished into internment camps in the country\u2019s far west.
Xi, China\u2019s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has overseen a harsh crackdown on civil society that is aimed at squelching dissent and activism among lawyers and rights advocates.
He has also used a popular and wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign to boost supervision of the party and as a powerful weapon with which to purge his political opponents.
Meng is China\u2019s vice minister of public security as well as president of the International Criminal Police Organization. The Lyon-based international police agency said Saturday it had used law enforcement channels to inquire with China about Meng\u2019s status.<\/p>\n