‘I would have been killed’: France grants asylum to wife of ex-Interpol chief Meng Hongwei
- Lawyers argue Grace Meng would be in danger in China after criticising authorities for the handling of her husband’s case
- She and their two young sons granted refugee status last week
The wife of Meng Hongwei, the former Interpol president facing trial in China for what she believes are political reasons, said on Monday that France had saved her life and the lives of their two young boys by granting her asylum request.
The French government office that rules on asylum requests rendered its decision last week, granting her refugee status, Grace Meng’s legal team said. The asylum office did not respond to inquiries by phone and email, and the French Interior Ministry said it did not comment on individual cases.
Grace Meng said the guarantee of being able to stay in France, where Meng Hongwei was stationed with Interpol, offered her family greater security while she pursued her struggle to get information from China about her husband’s whereabouts and even whether he was still alive.
“If France hadn’t protected me, I would have been killed ages ago,” she said. “It’s a second life for us, me and my children.”
Her last communication with her husband was an emoji of a knife he texted her from China soon before he disappeared on a trip to Beijing in September. Chinese authorities subsequently announced that Meng Hongwei was in detention, accused of corruption.
He has since been replaced as president of Interpol by South Korea’s Kim Jong-yang.
Meng Hongwei was expelled from the ruling Communist Party and from his office as vice-minister of public security, a title he retained after his 2016 election to the presidency of Interpol, the international police liaison organisation headquartered in Lyon, France.
Grace Meng claims her husband is a victim of political persecution in China.
Meng Hongwei is among a growing group of party cadres caught in President Xi Jinping’s anti-graft campaign, which critics say has served as a way to strengthen party control while removing the leader’s political enemies.
Last week, Chinese prosecutors indicted Meng Hongwei on charges of accepting bribes, accusing him of abusing his positions to “illegally accept cash and property in return for performing favours for others”. He is facing a trial at the northern port city of Tianjin.
Grace Meng said China had failed to provide a shred of evidence to support the accusations.
“This is a political case,” she said.
In the wake of her husband’s detention, Grace Meng has lived under police protection in France.
In filing her asylum request to French authorities last November, her lawyers argued that she would be in danger if she returned to China, having criticised Chinese authorities’ handling of his case.
In French media interviews she has said she fears for her life, and is afraid she and her seven-year-old twins will be the targets of kidnapping attempts.
In January, when she lodged her asylum request, she told Liberation newspaper that two Chinese businessmen, one of whom she knew, had visited her at home in October and invited her to travel with them by private jet to the Czech Republic.
She also said that later that month, the Chinese consulate in Lyon said it had a letter for her from her husband, but insisted she show up in person to collect it.
She also reported receiving “strange phone calls” and said she was once followed into a hotel by a Chinese couple who tried to gather information about her.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
