China accuses former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei of taking bribes



Chinese police have accused the detained former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei of taking bribes, an official statement said on Monday.To get more china news online, you can visit shine news official website.
The statement on the Ministry of Public Security’s website also said police would form a task force to go after Meng’s associates, adding that his “insistence on doing things in his own way means he has only himself to blame for being placed under investigation”.
It continued that Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi had convened a midnight Communist Party committee at the ministry, which expressed “unanimous support” for the probe against Meng and pledged “absolute political loyalty” to President Xi Jinping and the party leadership.
China’s National Supervisory Commission announced just before midnight that Meng had been detained while an unspecified law violation was being investigated.
Interpol also received Meng’s resignation as the international body’s president soon afterwards.
Meng was one of the six deputy ministers in the security ministry, a post he took up since 2004.
The ministry’s statement said Meng’s suspected corruption and violation of laws had “gravely jeopardised” the party and the police, adding that it would form a task force to investigate anyone else suspected of taking bribes with Meng.
The ministry leaders reiterated they would strictly enforce Communist Party discipline and steadfastly obey and carry out the party’s decisions and plans.
“There is no place for any negotiation or bargaining with the party,” the statement read.
During a regular press conference on Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang did not say directly whether the alleged crimes had been committed during Meng’s Interpol presidency.
“The investigation is still under way and further details may be revealed as the probe proceeds,” Lu said.
While many analysts have said the disappearance and detention of Meng, whose tenure was due to end in 2020, will take a heavy toll on China’s efforts to attain a leading role in global governance, some argued that Beijing would have been well aware of the risks before deciding to act in the way it did.
“I’m pretty sure they would have expected an extraordinary response from the international community before taking such a decision,” Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan said.
“I guess something urgent must have happened. That’s why [the authorities] chose to take such immediate action, at the risk of losing face on the international stage.
“If what Meng is involved in is nothing more than an ordinary corruption case, there would have been no need for the authorities to handle it in such a manner.”