A UK diplomat says Britain is part of a worldwide torture plot. Is he tell

[emad]

Independent
Our former ambassador to Uzbekistan refuses to go quietly. The Government should come clean about interrogation methods, he tells Raymond Whitaker
20 February 2005


Craig Murray is a very undiplomatic diplomat. Former ambassadors are supposed to be tending their flowers in Home Counties gardens, but this one is not. He is, instead, making extraordinary allegations, the most damaging of which is that Britain is using information obtained from torture to imprison people indefinitely. So convinced is he of the truth of this and other claims that he plans to stand against his former employer, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, at the general election.

Not for this man the emollient, languorous language normally associated with his profession. Our former ambassador in Uzbekistan is nothing if not forthright. "Unreliable information, obtained under torture in countries where it is routine, can be used against people in Britain," he told The Independent on Sunday in his first interview since leaving the Foreign Office last week with a £315,000 payoff. "On the basis of such information, they can be detained in Belmarsh prison or in future be put under house arrest for life. It impacts here in the UK."

The departure of Mr Murray, 46, from the diplomatic service is the culmination of an extraordinary two-year battle with his masters. His public denunciations of the Uzbek regime, and private complaints at American and British support for it, led to a confrontation in which he was accused of drunkenness and trading visas for sex with local women, and told to "resign or be sacked". The charges were leaked; when his marriage broke up over his relationship with a 23-year-old Uzbek hairdresser, Nadira Alieva, who now lives with him, that got out too. Now he plans to expose Britain's "hypocrisy" in the "war on terror".

"We have abandoned the notion of a foreign policy based on the rule of international law, in favour of one which says might is right, that there is one superpower and we'll be its best friend," he says. "I want to put these issues in front of the voters."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=612865

[Benbow]

1. As a Brit, I think it's true to say that the jury is still out on this

Anything's possible. Our media is not sweeping this under the carpet, and we are all looking forward to hearing what Mr Murray has to say and to judging for ourselves.

[gandalf]

2. This is a courageous man

It will certainly not make life easier for him.

[Benbow]

3. Or someone with an obsession

in self-destruct mode. It is impossible to tell which, at the moment.

[Monkie]

4. "they" have been trying to destroy/silence him for a while now

google is your friend...