Ikram Yakubov, the Uzbek security service defector, has given his first UK media interview to the first class journalist Neil Mackay of the Sunday Herald.
Ikram’s testimony is very important, particularly that he personally witnessed a CIA officer present at the torture of Islamic suspects. Remember, the official position of the UK government remains that I was making it all up. They still officially deny the CIA was involved in torture in Uzbekistan, or that we knew about extraordinary rendition. Ikram Yakubov’s testimony makes those government lies still harder to maintain. It would be nice to believe that one day there may be a serious parliamentary inquiry into the lies.
THE CIA SENT ITS agents into Uzbekistan torture chambers to observe the abuse of alleged Islamic terrorists, acc-ording to a dissident member of the Uzbek security services who is now seeking political asylum in the UK after fleeing Tashkent.
Ikrom Yakubov, a former major in the National Security Service (SNB), accused the CIA of involvement in torture sessions in the central Asian republic in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Herald, during which he made a series of startling claims. These include claims that: l Britain’s Richard Conroy, the UN’s co-ordinator in Uzbekistan, was assassinated on the orders of Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan. Karimov has been described as one of the world’s worst dictators and his rule, since 1991, has been characterised by allegations of torture (including claims that victims were boiled alive), media control, fake elections and brutality against human rights organisations and pro-democracy activists; l a series of bomb attacks in the capital, Tashkent, in March 2004 were organised by the SNB in order to tighten Karimov’s dictatorial rule and ramp up the threat from Islamic terror groups; l Karimov ordered the notorious Andijan massacre in May 2005, when Uzbek security forces fired on protesters, killing anything up to 1500 people; l Karimov’s regime routinely framed innocent Muslims on charges of involvement in Islamist terror and invented bogus terror threats to maintain his grip on the country, and l the CIA used a secret detention facility in Uzbekistan where suspects in the “war on terror” were taken from around the world to be tortured by SNB interrogators.
It is also worth remembering that the Tashkent bombings – which as Ambassador I investigated in detail and reported that the Uzbek government story was fake – were used by British ministers in parliament in justification of their anti-terror legislation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/oct/19/foreignpolicy.uksecurity
I think I may be forgiven for publishing again in this context what was to be the last telegram of my diplomatic career (it led to my sacking)
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
Thank you for posting your letter; it gives a good insight but I have to say your faith in the SIS is flawed. Other than boiling people alive their actions are on a par with those of Karimov.
Hi Craig
I wonder if you've done any research into the extent of Western involvement with terrorism? Books by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed reveal extensive connections between Western intelligence agencies (CIA, MI6) and those of their allies (ISI, Saudi), not to mention their respective governments.
His research demonstrates an astonishing and disturbing paradox where 'senior' terrorist figures are allowed to operate with almost total impunity while investigations into such figures are blocked by the governments concerned, to protect it would appear, intelligence assets.
Also revealing is the extent to which the financial affairs of the Bin Laden family and other Saudi royalty is interlinked with those of the Bush administration and mutually owned companies like Carlyle Group and Halliburton, not to mention mutual Oil interests of course. These same Saudis have been proven to be involved in funding and organising al-qaeda activity.
Meanwhile, dupes and other expendable individuals (e.g. the alleged London bombers) are used as scapegoats to 'prove' the existence of a terrorist threat and our governments efforts to 'fight' it. More 'Operationally Useful' material I dare say.
I have to agree with Ruth here. British intelligence are scumbags, playing their nasty provocateur double game, instead of protecting the lives and security of British citizens as is their duty. Furthermore, I have seen nothing to give me any proof that UK foreign policy is, or ever has been, concerned with Human rights or democracy. Rather it serves the interests of a powerful elite in which the lives of those in foreign countries are treated with total contempt (especially if they are poor and brown-skinned).
However, I'm sure you know about all this much better than me so excuse my rant.
Regards,
M.
This is important testimony, and all credit to the Glasgow Herald.
We have been here before of course. Crucial testimony and "smoking gun" evidence that the "War on Terror" narrative was fundamentally lies and propaganda is just shrugged off with "well, that was then, but this is now, we've moved on".
I'm sure, if Jack Straw was asked about this (which he won't be, because the non-Glasgow media and the pathetic backbench Westminster MPs will utterly fail in their duty), then he would dissimulate along these lines.
It's a clever tactic. But none of these crimes are expiated until someone is held accountable and, from the British perspective, this story doesn't end until Blair & Straw have been indicted and tried somewhere, preferably The Hague.