I just spotted — “Calling All Bloggers: These Documents need publishing” — via Memeorandum, which has links to more blog reports. (And Ghandi has a diary on this: “UK Secrecy Act muffled torture docs sent to Boomer – HERE.”)
(Kos adds that “[t]he British government is trying to prevent the publication of memos which detail how information procured by torture in Uzbekistan is being used by the US and the UK. Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan and author of the memos Craig Murray explains: … Read all.)
Background:
The UK government has been quick to deny that we practice, or tolerate the practice of Torture. So it is perhaps not suprising that they are determined that you should not see the following documents:
telegrams.pdf
npaper.jpg
Craig Murray was the UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, untill his complaints and protest at the use of intelligence gained by torture got too much for Jack Straw and the Foreign Office, who set about attempting to unsuccessfully smear him, and to successfully remove him from office.
bbc.co.uk
Craig Murray’s Timeline
The Foreign Office has had the draft of Craig’s book for clearance for over 3 months now, and they are doing everything they can to try and prevent him from publishing his side of the story. Their latest attempt to cover their own backs was to inform him, the night before Christmas Eve, that these two documents cannot be published, and that he was to return or destroy all copies immediately.What are these documents?
The first document is a series of Telegrams that Craig sent to the Foreign Office, outlining his growing concern and disgust at our use of intelligence passed to the UK by the Uzbek security services.The second document is a copy of legal advice the Foreign Office sought, to see if they were operating within the Law in accepting torture intelligence, and according to Michael Wood the FCO legal adviser; it is fine, as long as it is not used as evidence.
Faced with this heavy handed censorship by the FCO, in an attempt to cover up our use of and complicity in torture, Craig has decided to fight back, and has asked us all to publish this information, so it cannot be suppressed.
I am in discussion with the FCO over what I am and am not allowed to publish in my book. The FCO is seeking to gut the book of all evidence of complicity with the Uzbek regime.With Bliar cornered on extraordinary rendition, they are particularly anxious to suppress all evidence of our complicity in obtaining intelligence from Uzbek torture.
In particular, they have demanded I do not publish the attached documents, and that I hand over all copies of them.
… (Read all at the Blair Watch blog.)
