Town Rallies Behind Man Jailed In Mongolia -- Woodland Residents Recall George Risley As Being `A Nice Man'

IT WAS JUST AFTER DINNER ON a bitterly cold December day in a pine-flanked mountain village in Mongolia.

The American sawmill boss heard odd noises - the hum of a saw, the rumble of voices, mixed with the howl of the wind from the frigid peaks.

As he entered the sawmill, he found a saw left running and three off-duty workers inside, one of them drunk.

An argument ensued.

A knife was flashed. A gun fired.

Now, the sawmill boss sits alone in prison 5,000 miles from his home in Cowlitz County, the central figure in an international incident - one that could end in his execution.

WOODLAND, Cowlitz County - As the coffee brewed and the fan over the grill hummed at Frani's Restaurant, Hazel Saari leaned on the counter and her eyes filled with tears.

"He's such a nice man," she said. "Everybody's talking about it. The whole town knows."

In this blue-collar community of 3,500, the man on so many minds is 56-year-old George Risley, timber worker, husband, father, grandfather and respected Woodland resident who has been locked up in a notorious Mongolian prison, accused of fatally shooting a drunken Mongolian sawmill worker on Dec. 9.

On just about all fronts, his situation is grim.

His defense - that he feared for his life - is highly unpopular in this remote country, where courts rarely buy self-defense claims. Nor is bail an option; in Mongolia, it doesn't exist. If he's judged to be guilty, the best he can hope for is a 10-year sentence. The worst, a death sentence.

Worse still, just days after the shooting, tragedy struck the Risley family close to home: Risley got word on Christmas Day that on Dec. 18, one of his four sons, Robert Risley, was killed when his car slammed into a logging truck.

Friday, the Risley family got more bad news. It came in the form of a fax from the prison, saying George Risley had been moved to the prison hospital.

It didn't say why, but the family said he had complained earlier of a sore on his leg and a bad cold.

Now, as Woodland residents push carts at the grocery store and turn out for perms at the Hairloom hair salon, they feel bonded by Risley's predicament.

How, they wonder, could such a thing happen to the husky, friendly outdoorsman they know and like - a man "who never had an enemy," according to Phil Kinsella, who once worked with Risley at a plant that manufactures sawmill equipment.

"If you needed someone to talk to, he was always willing to stop and listen and give advice," Kinsella said.

Longtime timber worker

For Risley, timber has been a way of life. He has worked in the industry for years, starting sawmill operations in New Zealand and Australia and logging along the Columbia River and in Alaska.

Last year, Risley went to work for a subsidiary of Seattle-based Pacific American Commercial, a timber-products company. In August, the company sent Risley to Mongolia to set up a sawmill there. It has refused to comment on Risley's situation.

Like his sons, Risley spent much of his life hunting and fishing and was familiar with firearms. He asked his employer to send him a gun for target shooting.

Soon thereafter, a .22-caliber semiautomatic arrived in Risley's Mongolian community of Moron.

One of Risley's sons later said his father hadn't been coached on the laws and culture of Mongolia, where, even police, as a rule, don't carry handguns.

In a letter Risley wrote to his wife, Judy Risley, shortly after his arrest, Risley described the confrontation with the drunken sawmill worker, giving this account:

After Risley caught the man and two others after hours in the mill, the drunken one threatened him repeatedly with a stick.

Risley went inside his house and locked the door. For a good half-hour, the man remained outside, pounding on the house and shouting. Risley tried to call police, but the phone didn't work.

Once things calmed down outside, Risley got his gun and went outside to turn the generator off for the night and check on the mill. The drunken employee and the two others were still inside the mill.

He showed them the gun and told them to leave. The drunken one charged at him with a knife and was wrestled to the ground by the two others before breaking free and coming at Risley again.

"I could see that he had a large knife, and I just knew he was going to kill me," Risley wrote. "I was horrified and scared stiff."

Risley wrote that he fired his gun, killing the man instantly. According to Mongolian newspaper reports, he shot the man eight times.

The shooting triggered such widespread anti-American protests in Moron and Ulan Bator, Mongolia's capital, that the U.S. State Department warned Americans to "avoid large crowds of people and ensure they use reliable and safe transportation throughout Mongolia."

For Mongolians, the furor revolved less around the killing than around the fact that Risley had a gun. In a country where firearms are rare, the case astounded the public.

"It was an unprecedented crime. There was a huge astonishment over the semiautomatic-gun issue," said Sarangua Davaadorj, a Harvard-educated Mongolian lawyer working in Washington, D.C. "Guns like that are found only in the military."

Under Mongolian law, the mere fact that Risley carried the gun might constitute an "implied intent to kill someone," she added.

Though self-defense pleas are not uncommon in the United States, that's not the case in Mongolia, where "you have to have a much heavier burden of proof," according to Davaadorj. "The reason is to discourage crimes from being committed in the name of self-defense."

A poor country

Mongolia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and its prisons are notoriously bad. Risley is in one of the worst, in Ulan Bator.

"There's overcrowding, disease, bad hygiene, starvation, deliberate abuse. All these things," Maisy Weitherding of Amnesty International said of Mongolia's prisons.

Davaadorj agreed.

"Mongolians see movies of American prisons, see the clothes and the food, and they look like tourist camps," she said. "The typical person in an American prison lives better than the average Mongolian citizen." Davaadorj said that because Risley is an American, and the U.S. Embassy is visiting him, he may receive better treatment than others. His Mongolian lawyer and interpreter have helped to supplement his diet.

The U.S. State Department declined to talk about Risley's case, saying he has not signed a waiver that would allow the agency to speak publicly. As of last week, Risley's family, fearing repercussions against Risley from the Mongolian government, had not requested help from the state's congressional delegation.

Within the next two weeks, a Mongolian court will decide whether he will be tried in Ulan Bator or in Moron, as the victim's family wants.

Risley wrote that the light bulb was removed from his prison cell recently, making writing difficult. He gets two cups of tea daily as his sole liquid and said he fears dehydration.

And nothing can take away the bitter cold. By day, temperatures in northern Mongolia can dip 25 degrees below zero this time of year. At night, it gets even colder.

Family feared retaliation

Risley's relatives at first declined to speak openly about the conditions under which he is being held, fearing Mongolian officials would retaliate against him. Now, though, they are furious over news of his hospitalization and are willing to speak out.

They said that in the letters Risley sends several times a week, he writes about being deprived of water and food, about being kept in the dark, about having his pencil and paper taken away - especially after he complained about his treatment.

What comforts her now, say Judy Risley and her sister-in-law, Joyce Carlson, is the widespread community support.

Many friends have written letters to Mongolian officials testifying to George Risley's character. The Woodland Chamber of Commerce is considering a fund drive to help Judy Risley pay for a trip to Mongolia.

Several days ago, Carlson took to the streets of Woodland, placing petitions in every store, asking the government of Mongolia to let George Risley come home.

Within hours, "They were filled up, and I got calls to bring more," Carlson said.

Meanwhile, Judy Risley spends hours on the telephone and at her computer, sending e-mail to Mongolia for information about her husband.

"We just want him home," she said.