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LYON, France (AP) – The call arrived at night and was scary.
"You listen, but you do not talk," the man said at the other end. "We came in two work teams, two work teams just for you."
In her first personal interview since the disappearance of her husband in China, the wife of the former Interpol official described the threatening phone call that had prompted the authorities of the French city, where is the headquarters of the international law agency, to place it under the protection of the police. .
The French authorities are still trying to determine whether China had indeed sent, as the mysterious appellant led, expedition agents to go to Grace Meng, Meng Hongwei 's wife. But she has good reason to be scared. Talking about the fate of her husband in plain sight could provoke China's anger and put her in "great danger".
However, she hopes that it will help other families in similar circumstances.
"He has been missing for so long and no one has given me any information or told me where he left, which is very common now in China," she told reporters. The Associated Press during an interview. "I have the feeling that I have the responsibility to get up.It is only when you have gone through so much pain that you can understand that more and more people are suffering."
Meng Hongwei, Chinese Vice Minister of Public Security and Interpol leader, disappeared during a trip to China at the end of last month. A long-time Communist Party member, with decades of experience in China's sprawling security apparatus, the latter is the last high-ranking official to have been a victim of a major purge. against allegedly corrupt or disloyal officials under President Xi Jinping's authoritarian administration.
Sending to the AP on Monday in a hotel in Lyon, the French city where she resides and where Interpol is located. Grace Meng said that she had put their two boys to bed when she had received the threatening call. It was a week after her last contact with her husband. On September 25, he sent him from China an emoji from a knife, suggesting that he was in danger.
The man who called her on her mobile phone spoke in Chinese, she said. She said the only clue he gave about his identity was that he was working for Meng, suggesting that this man was part of China's security apparatus. He also said that he knew where she was.
"Imagine: my husband was missing, my kids were asleep, all my other phones were not working and that was the only call I got.I was so scared," he said. she said.
In deciding the fate of her husband, she has taken a step almost unknown in Chinese politics, where such movements are considered conflicting.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday in Beijing.
Chinese authorities said on Monday that Meng Hongwei was under legal investigation for accepting bribes and other crimes attributable to his "will". A few hours earlier, Interpol had said that Meng had resigned from his post as president of the international police agency. It was not clear he had done it of his own free will.
His wife suggested that the corruption charge is only an excuse for long-term detention.
"As a woman, I think he just can not," she said. She said that she would be willing to make their bank accounts public.
She refused to provide her real name to the PA, claiming that she was too afraid for the safety of her relatives in China. Chinese wives do not have the habit of adopting the name of their husbands. Ms. Meng said that she had already done so to show her solidarity with her husband. Her English name, Grace, is the one she's been using for a long time, she said.
A French judicial officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to the PA that the police were investigating the threat threatening him, but that the investigation had not been carried out. not yet determined whether Chinese teams had actually been sent to Lyon.
China's decision to take it over from Interpol's president, a top international figure, has been particularly bold, even for an administration that, under Xi's leadership, has sought to assert his interests more aggressively on the world stage.
Polish Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski told AP Tuesday on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting in Lyon that he disapproved of Beijing's behavior. Brudzinski believes this shows that China believes it can act with impunity "ostentatiously, without limit".
Grace Meng does not speculate on why her husband may have fallen out of favor, claiming that he had remained above the world under the veil of party politics' secrecy.
She described her husband as a modest beginning man, the fifth of six children whose parents were teachers. She rose through the ranks on the basis of her merit, and remained an idealist eager to see the rule of law established in China.
In tears, she declared that she had not yet been able to talk about her detention to their young sons.
China's beleaguered human rights activists point out that as a person occupying a seat in the country's powerful public security apparatus, Meng has contributed to the establishment of the opaque power system. largely uncontrolled by the ruling Communist Party, of which he is now a victim.
"Once a problem has become political, there is no law, it even happened to Meng Hongwei himself," said Hu Jia, a human rights activist. a Beijing-based man who is frequently placed under house arrest for his critical comments. "If his wife was not in France and did not talk to the media, his case would have been locked in a black box."
Earlier this year, Chinese officials set up the National Supervisory Commission, a party-run anti-corruption agency, authorized to detain suspects for up to six months and operate independently of the Cabinet, courts and tribunals. prosecutors.
"If Meng Hongwei was not a leader of Interpol, people would have no idea what kind of police empire China has become," Hu said. activist.
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Wong reported from Beijing.
