{"id":13371,"date":"2020-01-21T12:27:56","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T09:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/?p=13371"},"modified":"2020-01-21T12:27:59","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T09:27:59","slug":"china-senteces-former-interpol-chief-to-13-years-in-prison-over-bribery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/21\/china-senteces-former-interpol-chief-to-13-years-in-prison-over-bribery\/","title":{"rendered":"China Senteces Former Interpol Chief to 13 Years in Prison Over Bribery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By AFP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei, who was detained on a visit to China in 2018, was sentenced Tuesday to more than 13 years in prison for bribery in a case that shook the international police organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meng — a former vice minister of public security — is among a growing group of Communist Party cadres caught in President Xi Jinping’s anti-graft campaign, which critics say has also served as a way to remove the leader’s political enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He vanished during a visit to China from France, where Interpol is based, and was later accused of accepting bribes and expelled from the Communist Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His wife was granted political asylum in France last year, after saying she was afraid she and her two children would be the targets of kidnapping attempts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 66-year-old was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison and fined two million yuan RMB ($290,000), said the Tianjin First Intermediate People’s Court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At his trial last June, Meng pleaded guilty to accepting $2.1 million in bribes, after the court said he used his status and positions to “seek improper benefit”, illegally acquire property and accumulate bribes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court statement on Tuesday said that some of the “stolen money and stolen goods could not be recovered”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pictures from the court showed a grim-faced Meng standing in front of a judge, flanked by two police officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meng had “truthfully confessed to all the criminal facts” and would not appeal the decision, the court said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Knife emoji –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country’s public security bureau has linked Meng’s case to a broader initiative to “completely remove the pernicious influence” of Zhou Yongkang, a former security czar who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for bribery, abuse of power and leaking state secrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meng was appointed as vice security minister by Zhou in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that role, he was entrusted with a number of sensitive portfolios, including the country’s counter-terrorism division, and he was in charge of the response to violence in China’s fractious northwestern region of Xinjiang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Meng’s tenure, China’s public security bureau also arrested and interrogated a number of prominent Chinese dissidents, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who later died of liver cancer while in police custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2013, Meng was appointed director of China’s maritime police bureau, which includes the country’s coast guard and maritime anti-smuggling authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was the first Chinese president at Interpol — raising concerns among human rights groups who feared Beijing’s influence reaching overseas — and was expected to serve a four-year term until 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he vanished in September 2018 he sent his wife a message telling her to “wait for my call”, and then a knife emoji signifying danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks later, Interpol was informed that Meng had resigned, with Beijing later announcing he was being held on suspicion of taking bribes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meng’s wife has argued that Chinese officials had presented “no proof whatsoever to back up their charges”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was replaced as president of Interpol by South Korea’s Kim Jong-yang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By AFP Former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei, who was detained on a visit to China in 2018, was sentenced Tuesday to more than 13 years in prison for bribery in a case that shook the international police organisation. Meng — a former vice minister of public security — is among a growing group of Communist Party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27983,"featured_media":13372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-13371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13373,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371\/revisions\/13373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}