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RECEIPT OF INTELLIGENCE OBTAINED UNDER
TORTURE
Craig Murray Blog
Craig Murray
July 4, 2002
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
in writing. I cannot understand why Michael concentrated only on Article 15 of
the Convention. This certainly bans the use of material obtained under torture
as evidence in proceedings, but it does not state that this is the sole
exclusion of the use of such material.
17. The relevant article seems to me Article 4, which talks of complicity in
torture. Knowingly to receive its results appears to be at least arguable as
complicity. It does not appear that being in a different country to the actual
torture would preclude complicity. I talked this over in a hypothetical sense
with my old friend Prof Francois Hampson, I believe an acknowledged World
authority on the Convention, who said that the complicity argument and the
spirit of the Convention would be likely to be winning points. I should be
grateful to hear Michael's views on this.
18. It seems to me that there are degrees of complicity and guilt, but being
at one or two removes does not make us blameless. There are other factors.
Plainly it was a breach of Article 3 of the Convention for the coalition to
deport detainees back here from Baghram, but it has been done. That seems
plainly complicit.
19. This is a difficult and dangerous part of the World. Dire and increasing
poverty and harsh repression are undoubtedly turning young people here towards
radical Islam. The Uzbek government are thus creating this threat, and
perceived US support for Karimov strengthens anti-Western feeling. SIS ought to
establish a presence here, but not as partners of the Uzbek Security Services,
whose sheer brutality puts them beyond the pale.
MURRAY
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