LONDON - A former British ambassador has published government documents he says prove that Britain knowingly received intelligence extracted under torture from prisoners in Uzbekistan.
Craig Murray, who was removed as ambassador to Uzbekistan after going public about his concerns, defied a Foreign Office ban to publish the internal memos on his Web site Friday. The documents include memos to Foreign Office chiefs in which Murray expressed his concern over the use of "torture material."
In one memo, Murray said he was told by Foreign Office legal adviser Sir Michael Wood that it was not illegal to use information acquired by torture, except in legal proceedings. Intelligence officer Matthew Kydd had also told him the intelligence services sometimes found such material "very useful indeed, with a direct bearing on the war on terror," he said.
Murray said that even after he alerted his bosses to his concerns, they continued to use material allegedly gained under torture "on the grounds that the UK could not prove that individual detainees were tortured to extract information."
"I have dealt with hundreds of individual cases of political or religious prisoners in Uzbekistan, and I have met with very few where torture, as defined in the U.N. convention, was not employed," he wrote.
Here's the explanation from the British government:
A Foreign Office spokesman said Friday that while Britain condemns the use of torture, it would be "irresponsible" for the intelligence services to reject out of hand information which might protect British citizens from a terror attack. The spokesman spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy.
The mere acceptance of intelligence gathered by intelligence officials in Uzbekistan does not, by itself, translate into support for that country's torture practices. As the official quoted above says, it would be irresponsible to reject intelligence that could be important in fighting terrorism simply because it came from a country that tortures its prisoners.
It would be helpful if the media, when reporting on Mr. Murray, included some background information as to who he is. He has been described as a man who wants to "take down" Britain's Foreign Secretary. He has been making the charges leveled above for several years now. In fact, the very documents he has now "leaked" were published in a British newspaper over a year ago.
So, given that everything this guy has to offer in terms of allegations and leaked documents has been reported on at length in the past, why is this news now?
Probably because right now is a handy time to accuse the British/U.S. anti-terror coalition of torture given the blitz American media has already started on the CIA's secret prisons. And Murray is trying to get a book published.
There's nothing new here, but the media and left-wing demagogues are going to jump on this as though it were new because its convenient to have some additional Bush/Blair-bashing headlines right now.