Craig Murray
Encyclopedia
Craig John Murray is a British
political activist, former ambassador
to Uzbekistan
and former Rector of the University of Dundee
.
While at the embassy in Tashkent
, he accused the Karimov administration of human rights
abuses, a step which, he argued, was against the wishes of the British government and the reason for his removal. Murray complained to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
in November 2002, January or early February 2003, and in June 2004 that intelligence linking the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
to al-Qaeda
, suspected of being gained through torture
, was unreliable, immoral, and illegal. He described this as "selling our souls for dross".
Murray was subsequently removed from his ambassadorial post on 14 October 2004.
, Norfolk
and grew up in neighbouring Sheringham
. He was educated at Sheringham Primary and then at the Paston School
in North Walsham
, Norfolk, an all-boys grammar school
where he had an undistinguished record and by his own account he barely gained admission to study Modern History at the University of Dundee
. Whilst at university he attended few lectures, instead reading voraciously to teach himself and graduated in 1982 with an MA (Hons) 1st Class. During this period, he was a member of the Liberal Party
.
Having already been on the Students' Representative Council, Murray became President of Dundee University Students' Association
, elected to this sabbatical office
twice (1982–1983 and 1983–1984), an occurrence so unusual that the university court (the highest body
) changed the rules to stop him running a third time. He was reserve member of the team that won University Challenge
in 1983. He spent seven years in total at the university, compared to a normal four for a Scottish first degree
.
He joined HM Diplomatic Service
through the 1984 Civil Service Open Competition
. He had a number of overseas postings with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO) to Africa
and to Europe
. In London, he was appointed to the FCO's Southern European Department, as Cyprus
desk officer, and later became head of the Maritime Section. In August 1991 he worked in the Embargo Surveillance Centre as the head of the FCO section. This job entailed monitoring the Iraqi government's attempts at smuggling weapons and circumventing sanctions. His group gave daily reports to prime ministers Margaret Thatcher
and John Major
. In Murder in Samarkand
, he describes how this experience led him to disbelieve the claims of the UK & US governments in 2002 about Iraqi WMDs.
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".
In October 2002 Murray made a speech at a human rights
conference hosted by Freedom House
in Tashkent
in which he asserted that "Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy" and that the boiling to death of two members of Hizb ut-Tahrir
"is not an isolated incident". Later, Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan
confronted Uzbek President Islam Karimov with Murray's claims.
Murray was summoned to the FCO in London
and on 8 March 2003 was reprimanded for writing in a letter to his employers, in response to a speech by President of the United States
George W. Bush
, "when it comes to the Karimov regime, systematic torture and rape appear to be treated as peccadilloes, not to affect the relationship and to be downplayed in the international fora ... I hope that once the present crisis is over we will make plain to the US
at senior level our serious concern over their policy in Uzbekistan".
. Later during the same holiday he was recalled to London for disciplinary reasons. On 21 August 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 the department 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 1989
. The FCO encouraged him to resign.
He collapsed during a medical check in Tashkent on 2 September 2003 and was airlifted
to St Thomas Hospital
in London. After an FCO internal inquiry conducted 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. Immediately upon his return to work in November 2003, he suffered a near-fatal pulmonary embolism
and was again flown back to London for medical treatment. The FCO exonerated him of all 18 charges in January 2004 after a four month investigation but reprimanded him for speaking about them.
quoted him as claiming that MI6 used intelligence provided by Uzbek authorities through torture. The FCO 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 was critical of the FCO. A few days later he was charged with "gross misconduct
" by the FCO for making these media appearances. Having negotiated a settlement
whereby he was paid six years salary payment in compensation for the government's attacks on him, Murray agreed to resign from the FCO in February 2005.
In his 2007 book Murder in Samarkand
, Murray speculates that his anti-torture memos caused two problems for the US & UK governments. First, the CIA's extraordinary rendition program was secretly using Uzbekistan as a country to which to fly people to be tortured. Second, the transcripts of the torture sessions were then shared with Britain's MI6 because of the UK-US intelligence sharing agreements of WWII. By objecting to the UK's acceptance of CIA torture-obtained information, he was interfering with the secret rendition program as well as threatening the MI6's relationship with the CIA.
since leaving HM Diplomatic Service. He sums up his current occupation: "Being a dissident is quite fun." He has stood on two occasions for election to Parliament.
In November 2005, he took part in the Axis for Peace
Conference in Brussels.
In December 2005, he published a number of confidential memos on his website, which outlined his condemnation of intelligence procured under torture, and the UK government's ambivalence to this. The British government subsequently claimed copyright over the documents and demanded they be removed.
Murray's book Murder in Samarkand
- A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror outlining his controversial period as an ambassador was finally published in 2006, but only after several battles. Before its publication, many potential readers were contacted through Internet posts and e-mail listings to raise interest and by creating a body of public opinion, to guard against the publisher being 'bullied' out of printing the book by government pressure. These communications also mentioned how supporting government documents which were originally planned for inclusion had been forcibly removed because of 'copyright' worries. This, despite Murray's claims that many had received a formal release and thus should have been within the public domain. Their forced removal, Murray has stated is the government "trying to claw back the very limited gains in Freedom of Information in the UK", especially attempts to close websites on which the supporting documents were posted instead. Though many attempts to do this have proved successful, media interest has also meant that the documents frequently re-surface on mirror sites. A film version is in development. Paramount hired David Hare
to write a script, with Michael Winterbottom
attached to direct and Steve Coogan
to star as Murray. However following Paramount's decision to pass on the project, Hare rewrote his script to turn it into a radio play. The radio play was broadcast on 20 February 2010 on BBC Radio 4
and starred David Tennant
as Murray. A new film script is currently being developed by screenwriter Don McPherson.
A character based on him appears in the 2006 UK-US television co-production The State Within
, in which the former British ambassador to the fictional country of Tyrgyzstan, a hard-drinking womaniser, is embroiled in a plot to stop human rights abuses amid escalating threats of war.
On 16 February 2007 he was elected to the position of Rector of the University of Dundee
, his alma mater
. The other nominee was former British Lion
and Scotland rugby
captain Andy Nicol
. Murray opposes cuts to University departments and services which were proposed in a document drafted by a working group chaired by the outgoing Dean of the School of Engineering, Professor Michael Davies. The election saw an increase in turnout of 50% from the previous election, with Murray winning by 632 votes to 582. Coincidentally, Murray was in the same class at his secondary school as actor Stephen Fry
, who also held the title of Dundee's rector
In July 2007, he was elected an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster School of Law. His life features in a show by Alieva, The British Ambassador's Bellydancer, initially presented at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney, later moving to London's West End
.
She invited him to perform in it, but he declined, citing lack of acting ability.
Murray is Executive Chairman of Atholl Energy Ltd and Chairman of Westminster Development Ltd, a gold mining company, both operating in Accra
, Ghana
.
Murray became President of the East Anglian Federation of Young Liberals and age just 16 was elected to the National Council of the Liberal Party to represent the Eastern Region of England. Once at Dundee University, Murray remained active in Liberal then Liberal Democrat politics and remains friends with fellow Scottish student Lib Dems Charlie Kennedy and Alistair Carmichael. Murray was elected President of his University Students Union as an avowed Lib Dem. Murray went straight from University to join HM Diplomatc Service, where open political allegiance is forbidden, but Murray remained a silent Lib Dem member until 2005, when he decided to challenge Jack Straw but found the Lib Dem candidacy already taken.
Murray stood for election to the House of Commons
on two occasions, in Blackburn
, Lancashire and Norwich North, Norfolk. In both, he was an independent
candidate.
In the May 2005 general election
, he stood against his former boss Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
, who has long been the MP for Blackburn. He polled 2,082 votes (5.0%), coming in fifth place out of seven candidates.
Following the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
, Murray stood for election in the July 2009 Norwich North by-election
under slogan "Put an honest man into Parliament". He polled 953 votes (2.77%) putting him in sixth place out of twelve candidates.
He rejoined the Liberal Democrats
, as reported on 22 March 2010 on his own website. To the surprise of many, he voted for the coalition with the Conservatives at the Lib Dem special conference in Birmingham to approve the deal. He left the party again in September 2011 due to their policy of privatisation within the UK health service and education system, and joined the Scottish National Party
.
for Integrity in Intelligence in January 2006.
In November 2006, he was awarded the Premio Alta Qualità della Città di Bologna
.
on 21 August 2006 regarding torture and the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot
, Murray 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.
The threat of legal action against Murray by the Treasury Solicitor for the unauthorised publication of official documents on his website resulted in a large number of people mirroring
the documents on their own websites and releasing them via peer to peer networks. The Treasury Solicitor's letter stated that if the documents were not removed by 10 July 2006, which they were not, then a claim would be issued in the High Court for an injunction requiring the documents to be removed.
In September 2007, Murray expressed views on the character of Alisher Usmanov, Russia's 18th richest man, following Usmanov's investment in Arsenal Football Club but the post
had to be removed from his web site following an intervention from Usmanov's lawyers, Schillings, who threatened his webhost. Despite Murray's repeated assertions that he was happy to defend his statements in court, Schillings declined to sue Murray but concentrated on stamping out the story by threatening hosting companies who had no interest in defending the case. Under further pressure from Usmanov's lawyers, the hosting company Fasthosts
decided to permanently close the server for the web site on 20 September 2007, an action that also had the effect of deleting several other related and non-related political blogs. A campaign by bloggers against Usmanov's legal pressure ensued, and Murray's website has since returned.
used an interview with Murray and Alieva as a character for his Verbatim style play Talking to Terrorists. The interview is used as the dialogue for the character "Ex-Ambassador". The play had a very successful run at the Royal Court Theatre and has since been widely produced worldwide. Soans used Murray again as a verbatim character in his later play "Life After Scandal".
On 20 February 2010 BBC Radio Four broadcast a radio play Murder in Samarkand, written by David Hare
, based on Murray's book of the same name. Actor David Tennant
portrayed Craig Murray and the director was Clive Brill. In a review of the radio play in The Independent
, Chris Maume said that the 'no-nonsense script' told how "evidence" gleaned from torture and human-rights abuses helped to build a fraudulent case for invading Iraq, as well as telling of Murray's threefold passions, for justice, whisky and women.
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
political activist, former ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
to Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
and former Rector of the University of Dundee
Rector of the University of Dundee
The Rector of the University of Dundee is elected by the matriculated students of the University. From 1967 to 2010 the Rector was automatically a full member of the University Court...
.
While at the embassy in Tashkent
Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
, he accused the Karimov administration of human rights
Human rights in Uzbekistan
The state of human rights in Uzbekistan has faced heavy criticism for the arbitrary arrests, religious persecution, and torture employed by the government on a regional and national level.-Overview:The U.S...
abuses, a step which, he argued, was against the wishes of the British government and the reason for his removal. Murray complained to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
in November 2002, January or early February 2003, and in June 2004 that intelligence linking the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is a militant Islamist group formed in 1991 by the Islamic ideologue Tahir Yuldashev, and former Soviet paratrooper Juma Namangani—both ethnic Uzbeks from the Fergana Valley...
to al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
, suspected of being gained through torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, was unreliable, immoral, and illegal. He described this as "selling our souls for dross".
Murray was subsequently removed from his ambassadorial post on 14 October 2004.
Background
Murray was born in West RuntonWest Runton
West Runton is a village in North Norfolk, England, approximately ¼ of a mile from the North Sea coast.-Overview:West Runton and East Runton together form the parish of Runton. The village straddles the A149 North Norfolk coast road and is 2½ miles west of Cromer and 1½ miles east of Sheringham...
, Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
and grew up in neighbouring Sheringham
Sheringham
Sheringham is a seaside town in Norfolk, England, west of Cromer.The motto of the town, granted in 1953 to the Sheringham Urban District Council, is Mare Ditat Pinusque Decorat, Latin for "The sea enriches and the pine adorns"....
. He was educated at Sheringham Primary and then at the Paston School
Paston College
thumb|right|Sketch of the original Paston buildingPaston Sixth Form College is a sixth form college in North Walsham, Norfolk, England, United Kingdom....
in North Walsham
North Walsham
North Walsham is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England in the North Norfolk district.-Demographics:The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 11,998. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of North...
, Norfolk, an all-boys grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
where he had an undistinguished record and by his own account he barely gained admission to study Modern History at the University of Dundee
University of Dundee
The University of Dundee is a university based in the city and Royal burgh of Dundee on eastern coast of the central Lowlands of Scotland and with a small number of institutions elsewhere....
. Whilst at university he attended few lectures, instead reading voraciously to teach himself and graduated in 1982 with an MA (Hons) 1st Class. During this period, he was a member of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
.
Having already been on the Students' Representative Council, Murray became President of Dundee University Students' Association
Dundee University Students' Association
Dundee University Students' Association is the students' association, legal representative and students' union for matriculated students of the University of Dundee....
, elected to this sabbatical office
Sabbatical officer
A sabbatical officer is a full-time officer elected by the members of a students' union , commonly at a higher education establishment such as a university...
twice (1982–1983 and 1983–1984), an occurrence so unusual that the university court (the highest body
University Court
A University Court is an administrative body of a university in the United Kingdom. In England's Oxbridge such a Court carries out limited judicial functions; whereas in Scotland it is a University's supreme governing body, analogous to a Board of Directors or a Board of Trustees.-England:In the...
) changed the rules to stop him running a third time. He was reserve member of the team that won University Challenge
University Challenge
University Challenge is a British quiz programme that has aired since 1962. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC television from 1959 to 1970....
in 1983. He spent seven years in total at the university, compared to a normal four for a Scottish first degree
Master of Arts (Scotland)
A Master of Arts in Scotland can refer to an undergraduate academic degree in humanities and social sciences awarded by the ancient universities of Scotland – the University of St Andrews, the University of Glasgow, the University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh, while the University of...
.
He joined HM Diplomatic Service
Diplomatic service
Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel enjoy diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to other countries...
through the 1984 Civil Service Open Competition
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
. He had a number of overseas postings with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
(FCO) to Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. In London, he was appointed to the FCO's Southern European Department, as Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
desk officer, and later became head of the Maritime Section. In August 1991 he worked in the Embargo Surveillance Centre as the head of the FCO section. This job entailed monitoring the Iraqi government's attempts at smuggling weapons and circumventing sanctions. His group gave daily reports to prime ministers Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
and John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
. In Murder in Samarkand
Murder in Samarkand
Murder in Samarkand is a non-fiction book by British activist and former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray. The book forms an account of Murray's controversial ambassadorship at the UK embassy in Tashkent in 2002–04...
, he describes how this experience led him to disbelieve the claims of the UK & US governments in 2002 about Iraqi WMDs.
Personal life
Murray separated from his first wife, Fiona, with whom he has two children, after starting a relationship with Nadira Alieva, an Uzbek woman whom he met in Tashkent. She followed him when he left Uzbekistan. They were married on 6 May 2009 and had a son, Cameron, later that year.Uzbekistan
In 2002 Murray was appointed British ambassador to Uzbekistan at the relatively young age of 43. He was dismissed from that post in October 2004. In July 2004 he told The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
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".
In October 2002 Murray made a speech at a human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
conference hosted by Freedom House
Freedom House
Freedom House is an international non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights...
in Tashkent
Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
in which he asserted that "Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy" and that the boiling to death of two members of Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Sunni. pan-Islamic political organisation but keeps it open for all including shias,some of its beliefs are against sunni school of thought, whose goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph...
"is not an isolated incident". Later, Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
confronted Uzbek President Islam Karimov with Murray's claims.
Murray was summoned to the FCO in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and on 8 March 2003 was reprimanded for writing in a letter to his employers, in response to a speech by President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, "when it comes to the Karimov regime, systematic torture and rape appear to be treated as peccadilloes, not to affect the relationship and to be downplayed in the international fora ... I hope that once the present crisis is over we will make plain to the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at senior level our serious concern over their policy in Uzbekistan".
Discipline charges
In July 2003 some of the embassy staff were sacked while Murray was away on holiday. They were reinstated after he expressed his outrage to the FCOForeign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
. Later during the same holiday he was recalled to London for disciplinary reasons. On 21 August 2003 he was confronted with 18 charges including "hiring dolly birds [pretty young women] for above the usual rate" for the visa
Visa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
department, though he claims that the department 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 1989
Official Secrets Act 1989
The Official Secrets Act 1989 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It repeals and replaces section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. It is said to have removed the public interest defence created by that section....
. The FCO encouraged him to resign.
He collapsed during a medical check in Tashkent on 2 September 2003 and was airlifted
MEDEVAC
Medical evacuation, often termed Medevac or Medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to the wounded being evacuated from the battlefield or to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of an accident to receiving medical facilities using...
to St Thomas Hospital
St Thomas Hospital
St. Thomas Hospital may refer to the following hospitals:*Saint Thomas Hospital, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.*St Thomas' Hospital, London, England, U.K.*St Thomas Hospital, Kerala, Kattimoola, Kerala, India...
in London. After an FCO internal inquiry conducted 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. Immediately upon his return to work in November 2003, he suffered a near-fatal pulmonary embolism
Pulmonary embolism
Pulmonary embolism is a blockage of the main artery of the lung or one of its branches by a substance that has travelled from elsewhere in the body through the bloodstream . Usually this is due to embolism of a thrombus from the deep veins in the legs, a process termed venous thromboembolism...
and was again flown back to London for medical treatment. The FCO exonerated him of all 18 charges in January 2004 after a four month investigation but reprimanded him for speaking about them.
Removal from post
Murray was removed from his post in October 2004, shortly after a leaked report in the Financial TimesFinancial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
quoted him as claiming that MI6 used intelligence provided by Uzbek authorities through torture. The FCO 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
Today programme
Today is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...
, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's flagship political radio show, Murray countered that he was a "victim of conscience", and in this and other interviews was critical of the FCO. A few days later he was charged with "gross misconduct
Gross Misconduct
Gross Misconduct is the second album from crossover thrash metal band, M.O.D.. It was released in 1989 on Megaforce Records and Noise International and follows 1988's Surfin' M.O.D. It was three years until the band released another record, with Rhythm of Fear in 1992.-Overview:Lyrically, Milano...
" by the FCO for making these media appearances. Having negotiated a settlement
Golden parachute
A golden parachute is an agreement between a company and an employee specifying that the employee will receive certain significant benefits if employment is terminated. Sometimes, certain conditions, typically a change in company ownership, must be met, but often the cause of termination is...
whereby he was paid six years salary payment in compensation for the government's attacks on him, Murray agreed to resign from the FCO in February 2005.
In his 2007 book Murder in Samarkand
Murder in Samarkand
Murder in Samarkand is a non-fiction book by British activist and former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray. The book forms an account of Murray's controversial ambassadorship at the UK embassy in Tashkent in 2002–04...
, Murray speculates that his anti-torture memos caused two problems for the US & UK governments. First, the CIA's extraordinary rendition program was secretly using Uzbekistan as a country to which to fly people to be tortured. Second, the transcripts of the torture sessions were then shared with Britain's MI6 because of the UK-US intelligence sharing agreements of WWII. By objecting to the UK's acceptance of CIA torture-obtained information, he was interfering with the secret rendition program as well as threatening the MI6's relationship with the CIA.
Subsequent career
Murray has continued his opposition to the War on TerrorWar on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
since leaving HM Diplomatic Service. He sums up his current occupation: "Being a dissident is quite fun." He has stood on two occasions for election to Parliament.
In November 2005, he took part in the Axis for Peace
Axis for Peace
Axis for Peace was a conference organised by Voltaire Network to"gather political and intellectual personalities... already committed against the war logic and who wish to install a permanent structure that could make the voice of peace be heard."...
Conference in Brussels.
In December 2005, he published a number of confidential memos on his website, which outlined his condemnation of intelligence procured under torture, and the UK government's ambivalence to this. The British government subsequently claimed copyright over the documents and demanded they be removed.
Murray's book Murder in Samarkand
Murder in Samarkand
Murder in Samarkand is a non-fiction book by British activist and former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray. The book forms an account of Murray's controversial ambassadorship at the UK embassy in Tashkent in 2002–04...
- A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror outlining his controversial period as an ambassador was finally published in 2006, but only after several battles. Before its publication, many potential readers were contacted through Internet posts and e-mail listings to raise interest and by creating a body of public opinion, to guard against the publisher being 'bullied' out of printing the book by government pressure. These communications also mentioned how supporting government documents which were originally planned for inclusion had been forcibly removed because of 'copyright' worries. This, despite Murray's claims that many had received a formal release and thus should have been within the public domain. Their forced removal, Murray has stated is the government "trying to claw back the very limited gains in Freedom of Information in the UK", especially attempts to close websites on which the supporting documents were posted instead. Though many attempts to do this have proved successful, media interest has also meant that the documents frequently re-surface on mirror sites. A film version is in development. Paramount hired David Hare
David Hare (dramatist)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
to write a script, with Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
attached to direct and Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan
Stephen John "Steve" Coogan is a British comedian, actor, writer and producer. Born in Manchester, he began his career as a standup comedian and impressionist, working as a voice artist throughout the 1980s on satirical puppet show Spitting Image. In the early nineties, Coogan began creating...
to star as Murray. However following Paramount's decision to pass on the project, Hare rewrote his script to turn it into a radio play. The radio play was broadcast on 20 February 2010 on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
and starred David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...
as Murray. A new film script is currently being developed by screenwriter Don McPherson.
A character based on him appears in the 2006 UK-US television co-production The State Within
The State Within
The State Within is a 2006 Seven-episode British television political drama, written by Lizzie Mickery and Daniel Percival, produced by Grainne Marmion as a joint BBC–BBC America production, that was broadcast by BBC1 in the United Kingdom from Thursday, 2 November 2006.The protagonist of The State...
, in which the former British ambassador to the fictional country of Tyrgyzstan, a hard-drinking womaniser, is embroiled in a plot to stop human rights abuses amid escalating threats of war.
On 16 February 2007 he was elected to the position of Rector of the University of Dundee
Rector of the University of Dundee
The Rector of the University of Dundee is elected by the matriculated students of the University. From 1967 to 2010 the Rector was automatically a full member of the University Court...
, his alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
. The other nominee was former British Lion
British and Irish Lions
The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...
and Scotland rugby
Scotland national rugby union team
The Scotland national rugby union team represent Scotland in international rugby union. Rugby union in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union. The Scotland rugby union team is currently ranked eighth in the IRB World Rankings as of 19 September 2011...
captain Andy Nicol
Andy Nicol
Andrew Douglas Nicol , is a former rugby union player and the first British player to lift the Heineken Cup as captain of Bath Rugby...
. Murray opposes cuts to University departments and services which were proposed in a document drafted by a working group chaired by the outgoing Dean of the School of Engineering, Professor Michael Davies. The election saw an increase in turnout of 50% from the previous election, with Murray winning by 632 votes to 582. Coincidentally, Murray was in the same class at his secondary school as actor Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
, who also held the title of Dundee's rector
In July 2007, he was elected an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster School of Law. His life features in a show by Alieva, The British Ambassador's Bellydancer, initially presented at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney, later moving to London's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
.
She invited him to perform in it, but he declined, citing lack of acting ability.
Murray is Executive Chairman of Atholl Energy Ltd and Chairman of Westminster Development Ltd, a gold mining company, both operating in Accra
Accra
Accra is the capital and largest city of Ghana, with an urban population of 1,658,937 according to the 2000 census. Accra is also the capital of the Greater Accra Region and of the Accra Metropolitan District, with which it is coterminous...
, Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
.
Political career
Murray joined the Liberal Party in 1973, refounding with two others the defunct North Norfolk constituency Liberal party. Murray wrote personally to Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe to request a candidate. Thorpe's private secretary, Richard Moore, read the letter and volunteered himself to be the candidate. On arrival in Sheringham, he was surprised to find his sponsor was fifteen years old. Moore fought North Norfolk in both 1974 elections, the first Liberal to fight North Norfolk for several elections. It is now one of the safest Lib Dem constituencies.Murray became President of the East Anglian Federation of Young Liberals and age just 16 was elected to the National Council of the Liberal Party to represent the Eastern Region of England. Once at Dundee University, Murray remained active in Liberal then Liberal Democrat politics and remains friends with fellow Scottish student Lib Dems Charlie Kennedy and Alistair Carmichael. Murray was elected President of his University Students Union as an avowed Lib Dem. Murray went straight from University to join HM Diplomatc Service, where open political allegiance is forbidden, but Murray remained a silent Lib Dem member until 2005, when he decided to challenge Jack Straw but found the Lib Dem candidacy already taken.
Murray stood for election to the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
on two occasions, in Blackburn
Blackburn (UK Parliament constituency)
Blackburn is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The town currently elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election. It has elected Labour MPs since its re-creation in 1955.-Boundaries:The constituency...
, Lancashire and Norwich North, Norfolk. In both, he was an independent
Independent (politician)
In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...
candidate.
In the May 2005 general election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
, he stood against his former boss Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
Jack Straw (politician)
John Whitaker Straw is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Blackburn since 1979. He served as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001, Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 and Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons from 2006 to 2007 under Tony Blair...
, who has long been the MP for Blackburn. He polled 2,082 votes (5.0%), coming in fifth place out of seven candidates.
Following the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
The United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was a major political scandal triggered by the leak and subsequent publication by the Telegraph Group in 2009 of expense claims made by members of the United Kingdom Parliament over several years...
, Murray stood for election in the July 2009 Norwich North by-election
Norwich North by-election, 2009
The 2009 Norwich North by-election was a by-election for the United Kingdom Parliament's House of Commons constituency of Norwich North. The by-election took place due to the resignation of Ian Gibson after being banned from standing as a Labour candidate for the next general election...
under slogan "Put an honest man into Parliament". He polled 953 votes (2.77%) putting him in sixth place out of twelve candidates.
He rejoined the Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
, as reported on 22 March 2010 on his own website. To the surprise of many, he voted for the coalition with the Conservatives at the Lib Dem special conference in Birmingham to approve the deal. He left the party again in September 2011 due to their policy of privatisation within the UK health service and education system, and joined the Scottish National Party
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....
.
Awards
In recognition of his campaigning work on torture and human rights he was awarded the Sam Adams AwardSam Adams Award
The Sam Adams Award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers, to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War, and takes...
for Integrity in Intelligence in January 2006.
In November 2006, he was awarded the Premio Alta Qualità della Città di Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
.
Legal pressure
During an interview with Alex JonesAlex Jones (radio)
Alexander Emerick "Alex" Jones is an American talk radio host, actor and filmmaker. His syndicated news/talk show The Alex Jones Show, based in Austin, Texas, airs via the Genesis Communication Network over 60 AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations across the United States and on the Internet...
on 21 August 2006 regarding torture and the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot
2006 transatlantic aircraft plot
The 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot was a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada...
, Murray claimed that false intelligence
Intelligence (information gathering)
Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...
on al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
plots was obtained through torture done by CIA proxies, and that the intelligence gained is used as a propaganda tool.
The threat of legal action against Murray by the Treasury Solicitor for the unauthorised publication of official documents on his website resulted in a large number of people mirroring
Mirror (computing)
In computing, a mirror is an exact copy of a data set. On the Internet, a mirror site is an exact copy of another Internet site.Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information, and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads...
the documents on their own websites and releasing them via peer to peer networks. The Treasury Solicitor's letter stated that if the documents were not removed by 10 July 2006, which they were not, then a claim would be issued in the High Court for an injunction requiring the documents to be removed.
In September 2007, Murray expressed views on the character of Alisher Usmanov, Russia's 18th richest man, following Usmanov's investment in Arsenal Football Club but the post
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
had to be removed from his web site following an intervention from Usmanov's lawyers, Schillings, who threatened his webhost. Despite Murray's repeated assertions that he was happy to defend his statements in court, Schillings declined to sue Murray but concentrated on stamping out the story by threatening hosting companies who had no interest in defending the case. Under further pressure from Usmanov's lawyers, the hosting company Fasthosts
Fasthosts
Fasthosts Internet Ltd is a provider of Internet access and hosting services based in Gloucester, England. The company also operates the domain name registration service UKreg and cloud infrastructure service Rise, and has operations in the United States....
decided to permanently close the server for the web site on 20 September 2007, an action that also had the effect of deleting several other related and non-related political blogs. A campaign by bloggers against Usmanov's legal pressure ensued, and Murray's website has since returned.
Murray in popular culture
Robin SoansRobin Soans
Robin Soans is an actor, and a playwright specialising in verbatim and documentary plays. These plays include Across the Divide ; A State Affair which looked at life on a Bradford estate, produced by Out of Joint theatre company; The Arab Israeli Cookbook ; Talking to Terrorists Robin Soans (born...
used an interview with Murray and Alieva as a character for his Verbatim style play Talking to Terrorists. The interview is used as the dialogue for the character "Ex-Ambassador". The play had a very successful run at the Royal Court Theatre and has since been widely produced worldwide. Soans used Murray again as a verbatim character in his later play "Life After Scandal".
On 20 February 2010 BBC Radio Four broadcast a radio play Murder in Samarkand, written by David Hare
David Hare (playwright)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
, based on Murray's book of the same name. Actor David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...
portrayed Craig Murray and the director was Clive Brill. In a review of the radio play in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, Chris Maume said that the 'no-nonsense script' told how "evidence" gleaned from torture and human-rights abuses helped to build a fraudulent case for invading Iraq, as well as telling of Murray's threefold passions, for justice, whisky and women.
Controversies
According to Paul Craig RobertsPaul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and...
,
See also
- Matthew Hoh, US diplomat in Afghanistan who resigned in 2009 due to concerns with the ongoing war
External links
- Craig Murray's website
- Craig Murray - Norwich North Parliamentary election candidate website
- Speech at Chatham House (PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
) - Monday 8 November 2004 - British Embassy, Tashkent Press And Public Affairs - links to some speeches and interviews
- The Uses of Torture - Speech transcript, February 2005
- Video : Testimony at Axis for Peace Conference, November 2005
- Amy Goodman. Craig Murray on why he posted classified memos, Democracy Now, 19 January 2006.
- Copy of July 2004 telegram.
- Bush Commission, International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration.
- Craig Murray's campaign song "Hit The Road Jack Straw"
- Postman Patel and his dog Jack
- Murder in Samarkand by Craig Murray
- Her Majesty's Man in Tashkent by Craig Murray, 3 September 2006, Washington Post
- "My life as a lap-dancer, by the girlfriend of controversial former British Ambassador Craig Murray" by Nadira Aleiva 15 December 2007, Daily Mail]
- Audio from the Stop The War Conference Scotland 2007: Craig Murray 15 February 2007, Progressive Podcast
- International of Torture: The Documents the Crown Would Like to Censor
- Article by Craig Murray about a secret British plot to start war with Iran