Dear ****
It’s not the al-Jazeera Memo, but these are some more documents that the
UK Government are trying to suppress with the threat of prosecution under
the Official Secrets Act. They detail our use of intelligence extracted
by torture, and legal advice the Foreign Office received on the subject,
and we need to get them out there as soon as possible before the
government act.
*If you could post them on your website, ASAP, it would be very much
appreciated.*
The Documents have been posted at Empire Burlesque in HTML (converted PDFs).
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.
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.
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.
The obvious answer to this is to post these documents as widely on the web as possible. This is also potentially very valuable in establishing that I am not attempting to make money from these documents – you don’t have to buy my book to see them, they are freely available. If you buy the book, you are only paying for the added value of my thoughts.
This will only work if we can get the very widely posted, including on sites in the US and elsewhere outside the UK … there is a chance that those who … post this stuff will get threatened under the Official Secrets Act.
In March 2003 I was summoned back to London from Tashkent specifically for a meeting at which I was told to stop protesting. I was told specifically that it was perfectly legal for us to obtain and to use intelligence from the Uzbek torture chambers.
After this meeting Sir Michael Wood, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s legal adviser, wrote to confirm this position. This minute from Michael Wood is perhaps the most important document that has become public about extraordinary rendition. It is irrefutable evidence of the government’s use of torture material, and that I was attempting to stop it. It is no wonder that the government is trying to suppress this.
Compare and Contrast the government’s public position on Torture, with the information they were recieving at the time from their own Ambassador, and the legal advice they were seeking.
We have archived a selection of government spin and lies on the use of torture in these 4 pages:
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/708
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/709
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/710
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/711
and you can listen to Jack Straw and Tony Blair deny what you read in these hitherto ‘secret’ documents here.
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/down/strawhust.mp3
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/down/blairrend.mp3
What you can do:
We have published the documents in full here, and ask that anyone who can will do the same.
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/715
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/714
If you could publish, host and link to these documents on your own webspace, then it will be harder for anybody to be prosecuted here in the UK, and ensure that they get maximum coverage.
Craig Murray stood up for what many of us believe, and it cost him his Job, his health, and his professional reputation. The least we can do his stand by him as he defies the UK government’s attempts at censorship, and possible prosecution.
Craig’s own post on the subject can be found here:
I attach our latest post on the subject.
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/716Thanks very much for your help, if you are outside the UK, then you are
not threatened by the use of the Official Secrets Act. UK bloggers
should be aware that there is the potential that we might get
threatened, but as the documents are already appearing all over the
internet, we think it unlikely at this stage.Cheers
Dan [ringverse]
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk
