Mongolian embassy chauffeur's son jailed for rape in Britain

LONDON (AFP) — The teenage son of a chauffeur at Mongolia's London embassy was sent to a youth jail for five-and-a-half years Friday, after admitting the rape of a teenage girl on the eve of her 17th birthday.

Javkhlanbayar Gantumur, 18, grabbed the college student around the neck from behind as she was talking to her boyfriend on a mobile phone at a bus stop in central London before forcing her into nearby Hyde Park and raping her.

Southwark Crown Court in south London was told the girl's hour-long ordeal, in which she was forced to strip, happened in the early hours of January 18 after she slipped out of her grandparents' house following a row.

Gantumur, who claimed to have a knife, eventually let her go after stealing 130 pounds (163 euros, 256 dollars) from his victim, much of which had been given to her for her 17th birthday the following day.

She raised the alarm at a nearby casino.
He was arrested within days of the attacks, which happened close to the Mongolian embassy, as a result of DNA profiling. His diplomatic immunity was waived and he admitted rape at an earlier hearing.

Sentencing Gantumur, Judge Geoffrey Rivlin told Gantumur he had left his victim traumatised and that his initial claim that the girl had paid him 100 pounds for "sexual fulfilment" was a "pack of lies."

"This case has already received a great deal of publicity in Mongolia not merely for what you have done to this girl and the shame brought upon your family but also... for the shame you have brought upon your country," he said.

Gantumur will serve his sentence in a young offenders' institute in Britain and be put on the sex offenders' register for life.

His lawyer Jonathan Goodman said his client had initially intended only to rob his victim to pay a fine for an earlier conviction for assault.

Gantumur came to Britain with his adopted parents when they were posted to London, but was "connected by immediate blood relatives" to very senior elements of the government of Mongolia, he added.