[As the British Ambassador in Uzbekistan.] At the same time that I was receiving word from Uzbek citizens about the gruesome affronts to their humanity, I was also getting CIA intelligence on Uzbekistan, under the U.S.-U.K. intelligence-sharing agreement. This information — fed to the CIA by Karimov's security services — revealed the same pattern of information as those forced confessions.
And it was a pattern that was false, often demonstrably so. One piece of CIA intelligence named a Muslim terrorism suspect with alleged links to al-Qaeda, except I happened to know that the person in question was a Jehovah's Witness, not a Sunni Muslim extremist. Another gave a specific location for a terrorist training camp in the hills above Samarkand, a spot I knew was empty.
The CIA was apparently well aware that it was getting material drawn from torture. At my request, my deputy confirmed this with the U.S. Embassy. She reported back to me that she had been told that the United States did not see a problem "in the context of the war on terror." (I immediately reported this back to Britain in a top-secret telegram.) And both the CIA and the British intelligence service, MI6, were accepting and using this intelligence in their assessments, despite its highly questionable validity.
Scottish author, human rights campaigner, journalist and diplomat
(born 17 October 1958) is a Scottish former diplomat for the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office who was the ambassador to Uzbekistan between 2002 and 2004, a post from which he was removed. In later years, he has been known for his defence of Julian Assange, and for contentious claims published on his blog and X, formerly known as Twitter. He was the Workers Party of Britain candidate in Blackburn at the 2024 general election coming third with 18.3% of votes.
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Alternative Names:
Craig John Murray
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[I]n 2002, some months after MI6 sent its advice, the recently arrived British ambassador to Uzbekistan inquired urgently of the Foreign Office what its legal justification was for receiving information from Islamic dissidents who had been boiled alive to produce it. Craig Murray records his astonishment on being recalled to London to be told that the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, had decided that in the 'War on Terror' we should, as a matter of policy, use intelligence obtained through torture by foreign intelligence services. A follow-up memo from a Foreign Office legal adviser in March 2003 explained that it was not an offence to do so. How sound was this advice legally? Morally, there is no question. But what of the encouragement to torture resulting from our enthusiastic receipt of information?
[The then Nadira Alieva] The next day she was walking past a nightclub and saw an advert saying "dancers needed". "It was basically a brothel," she said. But she was earning £150 a month.
Then, one April night in 2003, Murray walked in. "It was my turn to dance and I could see this man, very English-looking, with a half-smile, looking at me," she said. "He wasn't sporty-looking or handsome and I wasn't interested. I just wanted my tip. But the manager said you mustn't refuse him, he's the richest man in the place."
After chatting for a while, Murray suggested that she quit the club and become his mistress. "I told him, 'You're not the first to offer', and I left." The next time Murray returned to the club, it was Alieva's day off so he gave another girl £50 for her phone number. Flattered, she agreed to a date. Although she knew Murray was married, they were soon an item. "I'd gone out with diplomats before but Craig was different," she said. "He'd take me to official dinners and parties and introduce me to people. People were shocked as they knew I was a dancer but he didn't care."
I'm an Anglo really, born in England, like Sandy Lyle and Rod Stewart [...] but my father came from this huge Edinburgh family. He was in the forces and was posted down to Norfolk, which is where he met my mum. I grew up down in Norfolk, but I went back up to - and always spent a lot of time in - Scotland.
This is an enormous abuse of human rights. The abuse of process in refusing both a lawyer and the right to remain silent, the inquiry into perfectly legal campaigning which is in no way terrorism-associated, the political questioning, the financial snooping and the seizure of material related to my private life, were all based on an utterly fake claim that I am associated with terrorism.
[Extract from a blog entry] I am standing to give the voters a chance to reject all the political parties and put an honest man into parliament. I will not put my snout in the trough. I have proved I am not motivated by money by giving up an extremely lucrative career as ambassador on principle, in opposition to our complicity in torture.
The next morning brings good news. The two shops I specified are both available. They both belong to the local brewer, Thwaites. The one I choose has two pubs to its immediate right and one to its left. Only one of them is a going concern.
This is one of Blackburn's most striking features. It has an astonishing number of ex-pubs. Some have been converted to other uses, but many more are derelict. I wonder why there were so many and what factors caused this cull. Something else I have yet to learn.
I return to London to find messages waiting from Martin Bell and Brian Eno; both want to help my campaign. Then I receive news from the estate agent. Thwaites has decided it will not let me rent any of its property in Blackburn. Its directors feel it would not be in the company's interests to allow its premises to be used to campaign against Jack Straw.