Interpol opens its annual meeting
Global policing agency to elect new president
ISTANBUL — Interpol kicked off its annual meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday to discuss security threats and crime trends as well as to hold a closely watched election for the international police body’s new leadership.
About 470 police chiefs, ministers and other representatives from more than 160 countries are attending the three-day General Assembly, which is scheduled to vote Thursday to elect a new president and executive committee members.
On Tuesday, delegates voted to admit the Federated States of Micronesia, raising the number of Interpol members to 195, according to an Interpol statement.
The election for president is being followed closely since the first-ever Chinese president of the body, Meng Hongwei, vanished midway through his four-year term on a return trip to China in 2018. It later emerged that he had been detained, accused of bribery and other alleged crimes. Interpol then announced that Meng had resigned.
A vice president, Kim Jong Yan from South Korea, was swiftly elected to serve out the rest of Meng’s term. Kim’s presidency was due to end in 2020, but his tenure has been extended by a year after the coronavirus pandemic prompted Interpol to scrap its annual assembly last year. His replacement will be elected for one four-year term.
The vote is also the subject of added controversy because representatives from China and the United Arab Emirates are bidding for top posts. Critics contend that if these candidates win, their countries would use Interpol’s global reach to apprehend exiled dissidents and even political opponents at home, instead of hunting down drug smugglers, human traffickers, war crimes suspects and alleged extremists.