The Court of Chingeltei District has not revealed the charges for which it sentenced the Chief of the Anti Corruption Authority (ACA), Ch.Sangaragchaa, to 2 years and 4 months in prison, but one of them was a complaint of defamation from S.Erdene, a DP MP. He answers our reporter’s questions.

How and why did you feel defamed?
The ACA Chief was much in the news in 2010 and the Central Intelligence Service and the State Prosecutor-General’s Office are known to have watched how he and the ACA worked. Sangaragchaa used to declare at press conferences how the ACA had unearthed cases involving billions of MNT but we have heard nothing further about them. Once he said some state high officials had been pardoned under the law of amnesty initiated by the President, and thus avoided serving time for crimes they had committed. When a journalist asked who they were, Sangaragchaa gave my name and that of former Minister for Emergency S.Otgonbayar. The media reported this, and I felt defamed by Sangaragchaa’s description of me as a criminal who received amnesty.

Did you then charge Sangaragchaa with defamation?
No. I sent him the order of the Court of Bayangol District rejecting charges against me, and wanted to know why he had said my acquittal was actually an amnesty. I wrote to him three times but received no answer. I also asked him personally during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice, and he refused to admit that he had done anything wrong.

What did he say?
He said that he had merely given his opinion. That is when I complained to the Investigation Office under the State Prosecutors General’s Office that Sangaragchaa had defamed me by telling media I was a criminal. I did not demand any monetary compensation. I just wanted him to retract his incorrect statement about me.
On the second day of the trial Sangaragchaa sent word to me through my advocate that he regretted his words. I said he should offer a written apology. This he did not do, and the court issued its decision.

The majority in the Standing Committee on Justice earlier decided that both Sangarchaa and his Deputy at the ACA, D.Sunduisuren, should continue to hold office. Will they hold the same view after the sentence?
I’d think a person is guilty when a court finds him so. Maybe there will be an appeal.

Were the sentences only for defamation?
There were other charges, too, such as unauthorized surveillance of other officials, spending state funds for private use, and betraying state secret and slandering people.