Knife emoji sent as ‘a sign of danger’
The wife of a leader of international police agency Interpol made an impassioned plea to the world for help bringing her missing husband to safety, saying he sent her an image of a knife before he disappeared in China and she thinks it was his way of saying that he was in danger.
Grace Meng detailed the last messages she exchanged with her husband, Interpol executive committee president Meng Hongwei, to reporters as part of her unusual appeal.
Meng is a senior public security official in China, and regularly travelled between Beijing and Lyon, France, where Interpol is based.
His wife’s plea underscored how China’s system of shady and often-arbitrary detentions can ensnare even a Chinese official with international standing, leaving loved ones uninformed and in a panic.
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 the latest high-profile official to fall victim to a sweeping crackdown by the ruling Communist Party. Interpol then announced that Meng had resigned as president, effective immediately. It did not say why, or provide details about Meng’s whereabouts or condition.
Meng’s unexplained disappearance in China, which had prompted the French Government and Interpol to make their concerns known publicly, threatened to tarnish Beijing’s image as a rising Asian power. The announcement said only that Meng was in the custody of party investigators.
The disciplinary organ of China’s ruling Communist Party said that 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 fate of 64-yearold Meng since French judicial officials said he was missing at the weekend. His wife first learned about the party statement from AP. “This is political ruin and fall!” she wrote in a text message to AP. “I can’t believe because the rule of law (in) China is his lifelong pursuit.”
At an emotional press conference in Lyon, Grace Meng spoke for the first time about his disappearance. “From now on, I have gone from sorrow and fear to the pursuit of truth, justice and responsibility toward history. For the husband whom I deeply love, for my young children, for the people of my motherland, for all the wives and children, so that their husbands and fathers will no longer disappear.”
The appeal by Meng’s 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’s rule.
Grace Meng said she hadn’t heard from her husband since September 25. Using his Interpol mobile phone, he sent her the emoji image of a kitchen knife 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 image.
Meng’s various jobs put him in close contact with Chinese leaders in the security establishment, a sector long synonymous with corruption, opacity and human rights abuses. Meng, a member of the Communist Party, worked with former security chief and Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, who is now serving a life sentence for corruption.