ULAN BATOR - Mongolia's vice foreign minister claimed Saturday the British High Court decision to extradite a senior security official to Germany was influenced by the British government.

Deputy Foreign Minister Bayarbaatar Bolor said in an interview with local media that the decision was unfair.

The vice minister said he saw the court's documents from the hearings and it contained words like "there cannot be two voices, from the judiciary and the executive branches respectively, on the same issue in our country."

The Mongolian government hired two criminal lawyers to defend Bat Khurts, who will go on trial in Germany on October 24, he said.

Bolor said Germany was one of Mongolia's most important partners in Europe and next month's visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel was expected to boost the two economies' relations and would not be affected by the Khurts issue.

Khurts, head of the executive office of Mongolia's National Security Council, was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant last September, on suspicion of kidnapping and drugging Damiran Enkhbat in France in 2003 and then taking him back to Mongolia from Berlin.

Enkhbat, who was charged with the 1998 assassination of a Mongolian minister, never confessed to the crime during imprisonment. He died shortly after his release in 2006.

The Mongolian government believed Khurts was on a "special mission to meet with British officials and discuss bilateral cooperation on security issues" when he was arrested.

Britain extradited Khurts to Germany on August 19. Enkhbat's children, who are German citizens, pressed charges against Khurts, according to Mongolian media reports.