Mongolian Ex-President Denounces Timing of His Graft Trial
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia — As he prepared to go on trial on corruption charges, the former president of Mongolia lay in a wrinkled hospital bed, where he was recovering from a 10-dayhunger strike he waged to protest being held in detention by his successor’s government.
Gaunt, barefoot and dressed in hospital-issue white pajamas, the former president, Nambaryn Enkhbayar, bore little resemblance to the populist leader who dominated Mongolian politics until he was defeated in 2009 by Tsakhia Elbegdorj, who now runs the country. But even in his apparently frail state, Mr. Enkhbayar angrily dismissed the charges against him in an interview on Wednesday, and criticized the timing of the trial as a ploy to remove him from the political arena just weeks before parliamentary elections.
“If this is a political case, let’s do it now,” he said in fluent English. “But if we live in a real democratic country, and this is not just political theater, let’s take more time.”
On Thursday, a district court postponed the trial, which was to have opened that day, to allow Mr. Enkhbayar to recuperate. The new trial, scheduled for June 4, comes just two days before Mongolia’s date for submitting candidates in the parliamentary elections. The new trial date is also suspicious, his lawyers say, because Mongolian trials often last only one day, giving the government ample time to bar Mr. Enkhbayar’s effort to win a seat in Parliament.
“The coincidence is too great to dismiss the idea that this has been chosen deliberately to allow enough time to convict Mr. Enkhbayar before that date,” said Peter Goldsmith, a former British attorney general and a member of the House of Lords who is representing the former president in the case.
Mr. Enkhbayar said the court was in league with the anticorruption agency and the prosecutor’s office to smother his comeback. “Their task was to make me a criminal before parliamentary elections next month and the presidential election in 2013,” he said, tethered to an intravenous drip.
Mr. Enkhbayar and his supporters in Mongolia and abroad view the trial as worrying evidence of the country’s slide away from the rule of law and a fair and open democratic process. By contrast, his opponents describe Mr. Enkhbayar’s prosecution as long-delayed justice for a man they say routinely twisted the law for his own benefit when he was prime minister and later president.
Landlocked between Russia and China, Mongolia contains vast troves of natural resources like coal, copper and gold that have attracted intense interest from mining giants around the world and turned the nation into a pawn in a global game involving China, the United States and Russia. Washington has lauded the country for its smooth transition from Soviet satellite to thriving democracy, though the controversy surrounding Mr. Enkhbayar’s prosecution has drawn widespread criticism from, among others, Amnesty International and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California.
After losing to his rival three years ago, Mr. Enkhbayar broke away from the party of the current prime minister and founded the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, which has formed a coalition seeking to challenge the government in the elections next month.
Mr. Enkhbayar cast his trial as part of a conspiracy by greedy government officials seeking to prevent him from reclaiming mining revenues for the broader public. “Mining is the reason they’re so cruel and antidemocratic in trying to prosecute me,” he said. “Copper and gold have made people crazy.”
After a dawn raid by police officers in April that was broadcast live, Mr. Enkhbayar was taken to jail by the authorities, who said he had repeatedly ignored their efforts to question him about allegations of corruption going back a decade. These include the improper privatization of a hotel for personal gain, and accusations that he misdirected religious donations and used his influence to reduce a customs duty on shipments to South Korea of a book he wrote.
Mr. Enkhbayar asserts that the government broke Mongolian law by preventing him from meeting privately with his lawyer. “They put up a glass wall between us and forced us to speak through a phone, which was obviously tapped, and watched us via a camera,” he said.
His lawyers say that after his release last week for medical treatment and the sudden announcement of a court date, the government delivered 50 binders of state’s evidence, leaving them too little time for them to review the material and prepare a defense. “It is impossible that he could have a fair trial in these circumstances,” they wrote in a statement about the flaws in the case.
On Thursday, according to Mr. Enkhbayar’s lawyers, the judge warned him to use the time gained with the postponement to read the case materials. Citing his poor health, they said it would be virtually impossible for him to follow the judge’s order, since the evidence is stored at the courthouse and Mr. Enkhbayar is too weak to go there.
Those who support the prosecution say that Mr. Enkhbayar is no innocent victim and that he simply wants to regain power to get his own hands on Mongolia’s mineral wealth.
“This is really a case of him finally being brought to justice after years of the people being too afraid to file complaints,” said Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, a Stanford-educated member of the current president’s Democratic Party.
Ms. Tsedevdamba said that during Mr. Enkhbayar’s time in power, the police were much more brutal than they are today, and that the government arrested journalists for writing critical articles under a law banning slander of the state. This case, she said, proves that Mongolia has made significant progress.
“When they came to arrest him, nobody was beaten, and the press could broadcast openly,” she said. “Those are marks of democracy in action.”
Mongolia’s vibrant news media have followed Mr. Enkhbayar’s detention and trial closely, and much of the controversy has unfolded in the glare of cameras. For weeks, accounts of his deteriorating health and desperate pleas from his family members bolstered his party, said Sumati Luvsandendev, director of the Sant Maral Foundation, a political polling organization in Ulan Bator. “The arrest created an image in people’s minds that the government was using our criminal code for political purposes,” he said.
But in an age of 24-hour news and social media, Mr. Enkhbayar’s behavior caught on video seems to have turned the public against him. The government recently broadcast images of him walking around and acting aggressively toward medical personnel. That has fractured the image of a frail victim mistreated by the authorities.
“His team was portraying him as half dead, but footage shows him in quite good shape,” Mr. Luvsandendev said. “How he was portrayed in the local media has really damaged his credibility. It’s one thing to be accused of corruption and another to be ridiculed.”
Gaunt, barefoot and dressed in hospital-issue white pajamas, the former president, Nambaryn Enkhbayar, bore little resemblance to the populist leader who dominated Mongolian politics until he was defeated in 2009 by Tsakhia Elbegdorj, who now runs the country. But even in his apparently frail state, Mr. Enkhbayar angrily dismissed the charges against him in an interview on Wednesday, and criticized the timing of the trial as a ploy to remove him from the political arena just weeks before parliamentary elections.
“If this is a political case, let’s do it now,” he said in fluent English. “But if we live in a real democratic country, and this is not just political theater, let’s take more time.”
On Thursday, a district court postponed the trial, which was to have opened that day, to allow Mr. Enkhbayar to recuperate. The new trial, scheduled for June 4, comes just two days before Mongolia’s date for submitting candidates in the parliamentary elections. The new trial date is also suspicious, his lawyers say, because Mongolian trials often last only one day, giving the government ample time to bar Mr. Enkhbayar’s effort to win a seat in Parliament.
“The coincidence is too great to dismiss the idea that this has been chosen deliberately to allow enough time to convict Mr. Enkhbayar before that date,” said Peter Goldsmith, a former British attorney general and a member of the House of Lords who is representing the former president in the case.
Mr. Enkhbayar said the court was in league with the anticorruption agency and the prosecutor’s office to smother his comeback. “Their task was to make me a criminal before parliamentary elections next month and the presidential election in 2013,” he said, tethered to an intravenous drip.
Mr. Enkhbayar and his supporters in Mongolia and abroad view the trial as worrying evidence of the country’s slide away from the rule of law and a fair and open democratic process. By contrast, his opponents describe Mr. Enkhbayar’s prosecution as long-delayed justice for a man they say routinely twisted the law for his own benefit when he was prime minister and later president.
Landlocked between Russia and China, Mongolia contains vast troves of natural resources like coal, copper and gold that have attracted intense interest from mining giants around the world and turned the nation into a pawn in a global game involving China, the United States and Russia. Washington has lauded the country for its smooth transition from Soviet satellite to thriving democracy, though the controversy surrounding Mr. Enkhbayar’s prosecution has drawn widespread criticism from, among others, Amnesty International and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California.
After losing to his rival three years ago, Mr. Enkhbayar broke away from the party of the current prime minister and founded the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, which has formed a coalition seeking to challenge the government in the elections next month.
Mr. Enkhbayar cast his trial as part of a conspiracy by greedy government officials seeking to prevent him from reclaiming mining revenues for the broader public. “Mining is the reason they’re so cruel and antidemocratic in trying to prosecute me,” he said. “Copper and gold have made people crazy.”
After a dawn raid by police officers in April that was broadcast live, Mr. Enkhbayar was taken to jail by the authorities, who said he had repeatedly ignored their efforts to question him about allegations of corruption going back a decade. These include the improper privatization of a hotel for personal gain, and accusations that he misdirected religious donations and used his influence to reduce a customs duty on shipments to South Korea of a book he wrote.
Mr. Enkhbayar asserts that the government broke Mongolian law by preventing him from meeting privately with his lawyer. “They put up a glass wall between us and forced us to speak through a phone, which was obviously tapped, and watched us via a camera,” he said.
His lawyers say that after his release last week for medical treatment and the sudden announcement of a court date, the government delivered 50 binders of state’s evidence, leaving them too little time for them to review the material and prepare a defense. “It is impossible that he could have a fair trial in these circumstances,” they wrote in a statement about the flaws in the case.
On Thursday, according to Mr. Enkhbayar’s lawyers, the judge warned him to use the time gained with the postponement to read the case materials. Citing his poor health, they said it would be virtually impossible for him to follow the judge’s order, since the evidence is stored at the courthouse and Mr. Enkhbayar is too weak to go there.
Those who support the prosecution say that Mr. Enkhbayar is no innocent victim and that he simply wants to regain power to get his own hands on Mongolia’s mineral wealth.
“This is really a case of him finally being brought to justice after years of the people being too afraid to file complaints,” said Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, a Stanford-educated member of the current president’s Democratic Party.
Ms. Tsedevdamba said that during Mr. Enkhbayar’s time in power, the police were much more brutal than they are today, and that the government arrested journalists for writing critical articles under a law banning slander of the state. This case, she said, proves that Mongolia has made significant progress.
“When they came to arrest him, nobody was beaten, and the press could broadcast openly,” she said. “Those are marks of democracy in action.”
Mongolia’s vibrant news media have followed Mr. Enkhbayar’s detention and trial closely, and much of the controversy has unfolded in the glare of cameras. For weeks, accounts of his deteriorating health and desperate pleas from his family members bolstered his party, said Sumati Luvsandendev, director of the Sant Maral Foundation, a political polling organization in Ulan Bator. “The arrest created an image in people’s minds that the government was using our criminal code for political purposes,” he said.
But in an age of 24-hour news and social media, Mr. Enkhbayar’s behavior caught on video seems to have turned the public against him. The government recently broadcast images of him walking around and acting aggressively toward medical personnel. That has fractured the image of a frail victim mistreated by the authorities.
“His team was portraying him as half dead, but footage shows him in quite good shape,” Mr. Luvsandendev said. “How he was portrayed in the local media has really damaged his credibility. It’s one thing to be accused of corruption and another to be ridiculed.”
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