In 2007, I started work in Mongolia as a geologist with the company, Gobi Coal and Energy Limited. The Chairman was Mohammed ‘Mo’ Munshi – a citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and with a young family in Beijing. The next few years were an amazing time, as I got an enormous amount of geological experience in, not just Mongolia, but Indonesia, Turkey, and a few other places as well.
However, in March 2015, as Munshi entered Mongolia, he was detained and investigated by the Police, and placed under a travel ban. For the next two and half years, as he remained under investigation, Munshi lived in an apartment in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbataar. In 2017 he was taken to court, and after a two-day trial, he was convicted of, essentially, ‘fraud’, and given an 11 year sentence. This was later reduced to seven years (the initial 11 year sentence was a clear attempt to intimidate, by using an earlier version of the Criminal Law, which had a more draconian sentence. But the Supreme Court reduced the sentence to 7 years, using the New Criminal Law). Under threat of kidnap, his family fled China to Australia.
The precise details of the alleged crime elude me – as I have zero expertise in legal matters or business deals. The case involved Gobi Coal and Energy making collaterised loans to a Mongolian company, owned by the Plaintiff’s brother, who defaulted, and was then taken, in 2015/2016, to the HKIAC Court in Hong Kong by GCE – who won the case. The Plaintiff was an investor and shareholder in GCE Limited. Munshi was originally invited back to Mongolia in 2015, to discuss the issue and others, but was then detained, in an attempt to get him to waive the loan and extort further cash and assets from him. He was then told, during the Investigation Period, by the Police and Prosecutors, that he would be permitted to leave Mongolia only if he paid the Plaintiff/CEO of the Mongolia investors company several million dollars, and waived his brothers collaterised loan and/or transferred to him the assets of Gobi Coal and Energy in Mongolia.
Munshi served the full seven years – in a high security prison. Over two years of that was in solitary confinement, thereafter he shared a 7 by 4 meter cell with 8 to 10 other prisoners. Among the appalling conditions in the prison, he was allowed one shower every two weeks, although sometimes (because of water shortages) they were a month apart. The beds were 60 cm wide, with a 2-3 cm mattress, and no pillows. Lights were kept on 24/7.
At this prison, under Mongolian law, prisoners were allowed one ‘short’ visit (max three hours, mostly 30-60 minutes, with family members only) every 90 days and one ‘long’ visit (three days) every 120 days, normal visits were allowed on a weekly basis, for a 30 minutes duration with family and approved friends, prisoners could receive one parcel every 60 days from the family, and could make only one five minute phone call every 60 days. These visits were frequently canceled or shortened as ‘punishment’, and made it impossible for even normal consultation with international lawyers.
What meat there was, was offal, intestine, sheep and goat heads (no white meat) and no fresh vegetables, salad or fruit. Unsurprisingly, over his time in prison, Munshi lost 20 kilos in weight. He continues to suffer from numerous medical ailments, some potentially life threatening, which need serious attention.
He was released from jail on 21 June 2024 – but remains under a travel ban. Thus, after nearly ten years of being separated from his family, he is still being kept in Mongolia.
Munshi’s on-going detention in Mongolia has been taken up by two prominent public figures. One is the Human Rights lawyer, Alison Battisson (@AlisonBattisson). Battisson was interviewed (‘Plea to free Australian executive trapped in Mongolia’) by Kylie Morrison, on Australian Radio National Breakfast on January 13, 2025.
The second is Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert (@KmooreGilbert) who campaigns “for democracy and human rights in Iran, and advocates for other victims of state hostage-taking”. She’s certainly in a position to empathise with Munshi. Moore-Gilbert is British-Australian academic, who was arrested at Tehran Airport in Iran in 2018 – and convicted of espionage, was incarcerated in Tehran prisons for 804 days. Her experiences were published as ‘The Uncaged Sky’.
Certainly the brevity of the trial, the length of the sentence, the conditions of incarceration, and the on-going detention make it seem more like a vindictive power-play and collaboration among those with power, rather than justice. Its not a good-look for other companies thinking of doing business in Mongolia. Moore-Gilbert was released as part of a prisoner swap deal commendably orchestrated by the Australian government.
What is the Australian government doing to get Mo Munshi home?
