A colleague and friend of a British man shot dead while
working in Mongolia 13 years ago has accused the country’s police of being
‘deliberately obstructive’ in the investigation into his death. Last week’s
inquest in Britain into the death of Tim Jarman, who was killed in his apartment
while working on an eight-month operation in Ulaanbaatar in June 1997, heard
how the mystery of how and why he came to receive a single gunshot wound to the
head has never been solved, and the Mongolian investigation into the incident
was closed in 1999.

An inquest was finally held after the coroner’s office
received enough paperwork for a hearing to take place. Evidence was heard from
a number of witnesses including the 50-year-old’s friend and colleague, Robert
Walters. Walters was working alongside agricultural consultant Jarman at the
time and was initially questioned as part of the investigation.

Although he was never formally arrested, he said he and
another of Jarman’s friends Tina Ohmahn had been interrogated by the
authorities and accused of murdering him. He said, “The evidence they seemed to
base this around was one single photo with me and Tina on either side and Tim
in the middle with his arms around our shoulders taken at some special event.

“All three of us were good friends but they said we had
been involved in a sexual relationship. My assumption that they drew this
conclusion is because in Mongolia they don’t tend to make physical contact with
each other unless they are involved in a sexual relationship. But that was
their main evidence.”

Walters, who has
since trained to be a police officer himself, said, “The Mongolian
investigation was utterly flawed, I know they have been unobstructive and
cooperative since, but I think at best they were unwilling and inept and at
worst deliberately obstructive.”

The inquest heard there was speculation that Jarman was
assassinated because he may have found evidence of corruption involving the
distribution of aid money through his work in the capital for a development
bank. Ms Ohmahn suspected this was the case. Her statement, read by coroner’s
officer Laurie Cook, said: “I thought he knew something about the funds and was
going to blow his whistle on Monday.”

 Walters shared her
suspicion and said he would not have been surprised if the Mongolian authorities
were involved with his murder. He described how he was interrogated for hours
by the force and felt as though he was being led by officers. He said: “It
would not surprise me if the Mongolian authorities had some involvement in
Tim’s death.

“They tried to illicit a confession out of me and trying
to make me a scapegoat for the investigation. I became ground down and confused
and dehydrated. After a while I was confused as to what had or hadn’t taken
place and I was being led by them. I started to see things that hadn’t happened
and was starting to confess the confession they wanted.”

Walters had last seen the father-of-two on the Friday
evening before his murder and before he headed out to a friend’s house for a
party in the evening. He had appeared ‘jolly’ and ‘jovial’ and showed no signs
of being in any trouble.

Jarman was last seen alive by friends after leaving a pub
for expatriates in the capital that Friday. They became increasingly worried
after he did not call them the next day after arranging to go on a fishing trip
with them. When no one had heard from him by Sunday, they climbed through his
window, via the balcony of a neighbor who said she had not heard anything from Jarman’s
apartment all weekend, and found his body.

It was initially thought that he had had a heart attack,
but a single bullet wound was later found in the side of his head, with the gun
thought to have been fired from a distance.

Speaking before the inquest, Jarman’s wife Sally, now 58,
had told the BBC: “I regret deeply that a man of 50 was literally struck down
in his prime and didn’t live to see his children”s achievements.” She added, “At
first the Foreign Office thought he had had a heart attack but then I had a
call to say he had been shot. The first line of inquiry by Mongolian police was
that he”d had an affair – a crime of passion – but this was quickly refuted by
friends and family. I think the police were floundering. They have a very
poorly funded but well-educated police force. Dealing with the murder of a
foreigner is a very unusual thing there and really left them out of their
depth.”