Germany charges Mongolian spy with kidnapping

German prosecutors have charged a Mongolian spy over the kidnapping of a countryman in France who was then transported across Europe and sent back to his homeland. The federal prosecutors’ office said Tuesday it had charged 42-year-old Bat Khurts with abduction and dangerous bodily harm. Britain handed over the suspect to Germany four days earlier. Khurts is accused of carrying out the 2003 kidnapping of a Mongolian man, Damiran Enkhbat, along with other, unidentified, Mongolian intelligence officials.Prosecutors said the plan was to present Enkhbat to the Mongolian public as the murderer of Sanjaasuren Zorig, a prominent politician and government minister stabbed to death in Ulan Bator in 1998, although they said there was no evidence he was the perpetrator.

Enkhbat was abducted in France, where he lived, in 2003. He was driven to Germany and flown back to Mongolia, where he was imprisoned and where human rights groups say he was tortured. He later died of liver disease.

The Mongolian government has admitted Khurts is a chief at its National Security Council and apologized for the kidnapping, but Khurts’ lawyers argued in Britain that his arrest violated his diplomatic immunity.

Khurts was detained at London’s Heathrow Airport last September on a European arrest warrant.

The charges were filed at a Berlin court on Aug. 4. There was no word on when a trial might begin.