Death of Mongolian judoka Enkhbat Erdenebileg raises questions

Former Mongolian Champion Enkhbat Erdenebileg passed away last weekend. Enkhbat who won international medals in the IJF World Tour fighting U90kg and U100kg was 37 years. Enkhbat was a medallist at Asian Championships and reached the final of the IJF Grand Slam in Baku in 2013. The cause of the death of Enkhbat is unknown but the reactions on social media made clear that it was an unexpected death. After his judo career Enkhbat became a popular wrestler.

At the same time, Olympic champion Naidan Tuvshinbayar is being investigated for causing harm to Enkhbat Erdenebileg in April of this year. A few days before Christmas a preliminary hearing on the case of Naidan Tuvshinbayar was held in Khan-Uul district court and the case was returned for additional investigation.

2008 Olympic champion Naidan who is the current president of the Mongolian Olympic Committee had a previous detention and the restraining order will remain in place. The prosecutor will decide whether to continue the measure of restraint taken against Tuvshinbayar to transfer the case to the prosecutor.

Recalling the decision of the preliminary hearing, the Khan-Uul District Prosecutor's Office filed a criminal case against Tuvshinbayar.

According to Article 33.3, Paragraph 1, Clause 1.2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, “the case was remanded to the district prosecutor's office for investigation that could not be remedied by a court. The court upheld the previous detention of Tuvshinbayar until he went to the prosecutor's office.

Enkhbat Erdenebileg fought against  many World and Olympic medallists in his career such as current World Champion Jorge Fonseca (POR), Tiago Camilo (BRA), Elkhan Mammadov (AZE) and many Korean world medal winners such as Kyu-Won Lee (KOR), Kim Jae-Bum (KOR) and Hu-Ham Cho. He battled with Olympic medallists such as Or Sasson (ISR), Hisham Mesbah (EGY), Amar Benikhlef (ALG), Zurab Zviadauri and Varlam Liparteliani (GEO), Dae-Nam Song of Korea and Enkhbat was a competitor of Naidan Tuvshinbayar who he met twice on the tatami of an international event. Enkhbat fought at World Championships in 2010 and 2011.