Interpol is preparing to elect a new president later this week after China suddenly detained the previous one nearly two months ago, with some officials concerned that a Russian national with ties to the Kremlin could be the next leader of the international organization, according to Business Insider.
Reports said Alexander Prokopchuk could be voted the next president of Interpol on Wednesday when delegates from the 192 member states gather in Dubai this week to vote on a new president to replace Meng Hongwei, who was arrested by Chinese officials over alleged corruption.
Analysts said Prokupchuk is likely to be elected as the new president, which would be a major victory for the Kremlin, even though Moscow has come under fire for trying to use international arrest warrants to target critics of Putin.
Even on Monday, Russian prosecutors charged British financier Bill Browder, one of Putin's most notorious critics who spread use of the Magnitsky Act around the world, with global fraud, according to Financial Times Moscow.
Putin has already issued at least six red notices to arrest and extradite Browder using Interpol's systems in the past, but the agency has routinely ignored the requests.
But analysts said Provuchuk could allow that behavior to proliferate since "he was the person in the Russian interior ministry who was responsible for concocting many of these fabricated red notice requests when he was a Russian government official," The Times quoted former UK Foreign Office special adviser David Clark as saying.
The Times of London said there are two confirmed candidates for the position, including Provopchuk, a former official of Russia's interior ministry, and Kim Jong Yang, who is the current acting head of Interpol from South Korea
Some reports also said South Africa is considering nominating a candidate.
Meng went missing while traveling to Beijing in late September, but it wasn't until a week later when Chinese leadership said it detained him over bribery allegations.
But the details of his detention have not been made clear and his wife, Grace, denied the corruption allegations and claimed he was being politically persecuted.
She revealed his last message to her was sent on Sept. 25 and told her "wait for my call" before also sending an emoji of a knife after the two previously discussed his concerns about being detained by Beijing.
Interpol said it received Meng's resignation, without revealing the source, as the same day Beijing admitted it was charging him with corruption, but the international police organization said it accepted it "with immediate effect."
The Associated Press reported the letter was unsigned and had no evidence of Meng's consent, according to Meng's representatives at Interpol.
Jürgen Stock, Interpol's secretary-general, said the organization's rules did not allow them to investigate Meng's disappearance since they were "not an investigative body."
Stock also said "there was no reason for me to suspect that anything was forced or wrong," about Meng's resignation, but called on China to provide details of his whereabouts.
Meng's wife Grace told BBC News she was not sure if he was still alive.
She described Beijing as "cruel" and "dirty" for their tactics used to silence critics.
Meng has retained two law firms in London and Paris to help track down details about her husband.
A spokesman for Marisgny Avocats, one of her law firms, said she was still waiting for news on her husband since both Interpol and China have not replied to the lawyers' questions.
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / /Mark Schiefelbein