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Ex-envoy to Uzbekistan goes public on torture
By Anne Penketh
Diplomatic Editor
12/30/05 "The
Independent" -- -- Britain's former ambassador to
Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has defied the Foreign Office by
publishing on the internet documents providing evidence that the
British Government knowingly received information extracted by
torture in the "war on terror".
Mr Murray, who publicly raised the issue of the usefulness of
information obtained under torture before he was forced to leave his
job last year, submitted his forthcoming book, Murder in Samarkand,
to the Foreign Office for clearance. But the Foreign Office demanded
that he remove references to two sensitive government documents,
which undermine official denials, to show that Britain had been
aware it was receiving information obtained by the Uzbek authorities
through torture. Rather than submit to the gagging order Mr Murray
decided to publish the material on the internet.
The first document published by Mr Murray contains the text of
several telegrams that he sent to London from 2002 to 2004, warning
that the information being passed on by the Uzbek security services
was torture-tainted, and challenging MI6 claims that the information
was nonetheless "useful". The second document is the text of a
Foreign Office legal opinion which argues that the use by
intelligence services of information extracted through torture is
not a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.
© 2005 Independent News and Media Limited
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