China

Interpol Demands Answers From China on Missing President

PLOT THICKENS

The international body’s president vanished after setting off on a trip to Beijing on Sept. 25.

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Jeff Pachoud/Pool via Reuters

Interpol has called on China to clarify the whereabouts of the agency’s president, Meng Hongwei, after he went missing during a visit to the country. Meng, the first Chinese president of Interpol and a senior Communist Party official, has been reported missing by his family, who last heard from him when he left the police agency’s headquarters in Lyon on Sept. 25. Jurgen Stock, the secretary-general of Interpol, said in a statement Saturday that the agency had sought an explanation from Beijing “though official law enforcement channels.” “Interpol's General Secretariat looks forward to an official response from China's authorities to address concerns over the President's well-being,” Stock said. The South China Morning Post has reported that Meng was detained by the country’s disciplinary commission upon arrival in Beijing, though it was not immediately clear why he would be under investigation. His disappearance came as another high-profile Chinese figure, actress Fan Bingbing, reappeared after vanishing over the summer and expressed remorse to the Communist Party for tax evasion.

Read it at Agence France-Presse