[continued from previous message] 
  
 have not happened (I see these are quoted in the draft EBRD strategy for 
 Uzbekistan, again I understand at American urging). 
  
 6. From Tashkent it is difficult to agree that we and the US are activated 
 by shared values. Here we have a brutal US sponsored dictatorship 
 reminiscent of Central and South American policy under previous US 
 Republican administrations. I watched George Bush talk today of Iraq and 
 "dismantling the apparatus of terror€ removing the torture chambers and the 
 rape rooms". Yet 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 international fora. Double standards? Yes. 
  
 7. 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. 
  
 MURRAY 
  
 - ------------------ 
  
 Letter #3 
  
 CONFIDENTIAL 
 FM TASHKENT 
 TO IMMEDIATE FCO 
  
 TELNO 63 
 OF 220939 JULY 04 
  
 INFO IMMEDIATE DFID, ISLAMIC POSTS, MOD, OSCE POSTS UKDEL EBRD LONDON, UKMIS 
 GENEVA, UKMIS MEW YORK 
  
 SUBJECT: RECEIPT OF INTELLIGENCE OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE 
  
 SUMMARY 
  
 1. We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek 
 intelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information 
 anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the 
 Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are 
 fighting the same war against terror. 
  
 2. I gather a recent London interdepartmental meeting considered the 
 question and decided to continue to receive the material. This is morally, 
 legally and practically wrong. It exposes as hypocritical our post Abu 
 Ghraib pronouncements and fatally undermines our moral standing. It obviates 
 my efforts to get the Uzbek government to stop torture they are fully aware 
 our intelligence community laps up the results. 
  
 3. We should cease all co-operation with the Uzbek Security Services they 
 are beyond the pale. We indeed need to establish an SIS presence here, but 
 not as in a friendly state. 
  
 DETAIL 
  
 4. In the period December 2002 to March 2003 I raised several times the 
 issue of intelligence material from the Uzbek security services which was 
 obtained under torture and passed to us via the CIA. I queried the legality, 
 efficacy and morality of the practice. 
  
 5. I was summoned to the UK for a meeting on 8 March 2003. Michael Wood gave 
 his legal opinion that it was not illegal to obtain and to use intelligence 
 acquired by torture. He said the only legal limitation on its use was that 
 it could not be used in legal proceedings, under Article 15 of the UN 
 Convention on Torture. 
  
 6. On behalf of the intelligence services, Matthew Kydd said that they found 
 some of the material very useful indeed with a direct bearing on the war on 
 terror. Linda Duffield said that she had been asked to assure me that my 
 qualms of conscience were respected and understood. 
  
 7. Sir Michael Jay's circular of 26 May stated that there was a reporting 
 obligation on us to report torture by allies (and I have been instructed to 
 refer to Uzbekistan as such in the context of the war on terror). You, Sir, 
 have made a number of striking, and I believe heartfelt, condemnations of 
 torture in the last few weeks. I had in the light of this decided to return 
 to this question and to highlight an apparent contradiction in our policy. I 
 had intimated as much to the Head of Eastern Department. 
  
 8. I was therefore somewhat surprised to hear that without informing me of 
 the meeting, or since informing me of the result of the meeting, a meeting 
 was convened in the FCO at the level of Heads of Department and above, 
 precisely to consider the question of the receipt of Uzbek intelligence 
 material obtained under torture. As the office knew, I was in London at the 
 time and perfectly able to attend the meeting. I still have only gleaned 
 that it happened. 
  
 9. I understand that the meeting decided to continue to obtain the Uzbek 
 torture material. I understand that the principal argument deployed was that 
 the intelligence material disguises the precise source, ie it does not 
 ordinarily reveal the name of the individual who is tortured. Indeed this is 
 true € the material is marked with a euphemism such as "From detainee 
 debriefing." The argument runs that if the individual is not named, we 
 cannot prove that he was tortured. 
  
 10. I will not attempt to hide my utter contempt for such casuistry, nor my 
 shame that I work in and organisation where colleagues would resort to it to 
 justify torture. 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 UN convention, was not employed. When my then DHM 
 raised the question with the CIA head of station 15 months ago, he readily 
 acknowledged torture was deployed in obtaining intelligence. I do not think 
 there is any doubt as to the fact 
  
 11. The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more 
 widely known. Plainly there are, at the very least, reasonable grounds for 
 believing the material is obtained under torture. There is helpful guidance 
 at Article 3 of the UN Convention; "The competent authorities shall take 
 into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the 
 existence in the state concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant 
 or mass violations of human rights." While this article forbids extradition 
 or deportation to Uzbekistan, it is the right test for the present question 
 also. 
  
 12. On the usefulness of the material obtained, this is irrelevant. Article 
 2 of the Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer: 
  
 "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat 
 of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be 
 invoked as a justification of torture." 
  
 13. Nonetheless, I repeat that this material is useless € we are selling our 
 souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful. It is designed to give 
 the message the Uzbeks want the West to hear. It exaggerates the role, size, 
 organisation and activity of the IMU and its links with Al Qaida. The aim is 
 to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe, 
 that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, 
 coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human 
 rights and economic reform. 
  
 14. I was taken aback when Matthew Kydd said this stuff was valuable. 
 Sixteen months ago it was difficult to argue with SIS in the area of 
 intelligence assessment. But post Butler we know, not only that they can get 
 it wrong on even the most vital and high profile issues, but that they have 
 a particular yen for highly coloured material which exaggerates the threat. 
 That is precisely what the Uzbeks give them. Furthermore MI6 have no 
 operative within a thousand miles of me and certainly no expertise that can 
 come close to my own in making this assessment. 
  
 15. At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his 
 children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on 
 the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I 
 have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is 
 the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services. 
  
 16. I have been considering Michael Wood's legal view, which he kindly gave 
  
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