Acting President of Interpol, South Korea’s Kim Jong Yang, has been elected as the new head of the global police body, the organization said on Twitter.
The elections were held at the 87th Interpol’s General Assembly in Dubai.
Since October, Kim Jong Yang, 57, had served as acting Interpol president after the dismissal of the former chief Meng Hongwei from China. On September 29, Meng was detained in China on corruption charges.
Two main candidates to replace him were Kim Jong Yang and Russia’s Alexander Prokopchuk. On Monday, a group of US senators from both parties made public an open letter to US President Donald Trump, asking him to influence members of the Interpol General Assembly in order to prevent Russian national Prokopchuk from becoming the new Interpol head.
#BREAKING: Kim Jong Yang of the Republic of #Korea has been elected President of INTERPOL (2-yr term). #INTERPOLGA pic.twitter.com/6I9HIyUWrf
— INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) November 21, 2018
Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the US senators’ letter calling for preventing Russian candidate Prokopchuk from being elected Interpol chief as a vivid example of pressure and election meddling.
Interpol, established in 1923, is the world’s largest international police organization, with 194 ·member-states.
