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Craig Murray

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 Craig Murray (born October 17, 1958) was the United Kingdom's Ambassador to Uzbekistan. He was removed from his post on October 14, 2004. While in office he criticized the Karimov regime of human rights abuses, which he argues was against the wishes of the British government and was the reason for his removal. He privately criticized the British government for extraordinary rendition. He accused his government of "selling our souls for dross".[1]

Background

In 2002, he became UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and was dismissed from that post in October 2004. He had been scheduled to continue there until November 2005.[citation needed]

In July 2004, he told The Guardian that "there is no point in having cocktail-party relationships with a fascist regime," and that "you don't have to be a pompous old fart to be an ambassador."[2] He is separated from his wife Fiona, with whom he has two children; Jamie, born in 1988, and Emily, born in 1994.

Uzbekistan

In October 2002 Murray made a controversial speech at a human rights conference in Tashkent, in which he claimed that "Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy" and the boiling to death of two members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, "is not an isolated incident."[3] Later, Kofi Annan confronted Uzbek President Islam Karimov with Murray's claims.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Discipline charges

In July 2003, some of his embassy staff were sacked while he was away on holiday. They were reinstated after he expressed his outrage to his bosses in the FCO. Later, during his holiday, he was recalled to London for disciplinary reasons. On August 21, 2003, he was confronted with 18 charges including "hiring dolly birds (pretty young women) for above the usual rate" for the visa department, though he claims that it had an all-male staff, and granting UK visas in exchange for sex. He was told that discussing the charges would be a violation of the Official Secrets Act punishable by imprisonment. He claims that he was encouraged to resign.

He collapsed during a medical check in Tashkent on September 2, 2003 and was flown to St Thomas' Hospital. After an investigation by Tony Crombie, Head of the FCO's Overseas Territories Department, all but two of the charges (being drunk at work and misusing the embassy's Range Rover) were dropped. The charges were leaked to the press in October 2003.[4] When he returned to work in November 2003, he suffered a near fatal pulmonary embolism. In January 2004, the Foreign Office exonerated him of the 18 charges, but reprimanded him for speaking about the charges.

Removal from post

Murray was removed from his post in October 2004, shortly after a leaked report in the Financial Times quoted him as claiming that MI6 used intelligence provided by Uzbek authorities through torture.[5] The Foreign Office denied there was any direct connection and stated that Murray had been removed for "operational" reasons. It claimed that he had lost the confidence of senior officials and colleagues. The following day, in an interview on the Today programme, the BBC's flagship political radio show, Murray countered that he was a "victim of conscience," and in this and other interviews criticized the Foreign Office.[6] A few days later he was charged with "gross misconduct" by the Foreign Office for criticizing it in public.[7] Murray resigned from the Foreign Office in February 2005.

The threat of legal action has resulted in significant publicity along with a very large number of people mirroring the documents on their own websites, releasing them via peer to peer networks, and making them available various filesharing services.[citation needed] A list of some current mirrors can be found in the post and comments at The Craig Murray Friends Blog.

Views

During an interview with Alex Jones on August 21, 2006, regarding torture and the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot, he explained that he does not believe that al-Qaeda exists in a physical sense. He also claimed that false intelligence on al-Qaeda plots was obtained through torture done by CIA proxies and that the intelligence gained is used as a propaganda tool.[1]

References

  1. ^ The Torture Biz: Selling Our Soul for Disinfo Rubbish European Tribune
  2. ^ The envoy who said too much The Guardian
  3. ^ British Envoy's Speech Reverberates in Uzbekistan EurasiaNet
  4. ^ Ambassador accused after criticising US The Guardian
  5. ^ 'Torture intelligence' criticised BBC News
  6. ^ Ambassador speaks out BBC News
  7. ^ Ex-envoy to face discipline charges,says FO The Guardian
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Controversial documents

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