Dozens of police arrested Mongolia's former president, raiding a house in the capital at dawn Friday after he refused investigators' requests to answer questions about corruption charges.Anti-corruption investigators first tried to arrest Enkhbayar Nambar on Thursday night. They stopped his car but were foiled by his bodyguards who took him to a nearby compound, beginning a standoff that ended with the raid.
Now an opposition politician, Enkhbayar was a formidable figure in the robust democracy of Mongolia, a resource-rich but largely poor country between China and Russia. Serving as prime minister and then president for most of a decade until losing office in 2009, he presided over a period of robust growth but also a widening wealth gap and, critics said, runaway corruption.
The head of the Independent Agency Against Corruption, E. Ambarbat, said the corruption involved the illegal privatization of a government-owned hotel. He said, "We have been investigating the corruption case involving Enkhbayar for a year. However, he never showed up for questioning. We had asked him often to come for questioning."
While he and other authorities said the arrest was legal, Enkhbayar's supporters said it violated the former president's immunity and was politically motivated. After losing re-election as president in 2009, Enkhbayar had formed a new opposition party and was contesting a parliament seat in June elections.