Criminal accusations of corruption have been made against Craig Murray:
”
he lobbied so-called businessmen including those from Pakistan willing to get cotton and other state contracts, those people had contacts with different Uzbek clan representatives including Bekzod Akhmedov. Akhmedov was seen many times in Craig Murray and his pseudo businessmen’s company in dens of iniquity of the capital, Bekzod Akhmedov’s favorite venues.
”
The allegations must be taken extremely seriously because they come from an Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. The lady in question is of course Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the President of Uzbekistan. As is her usual method, she gave an interview to a glossy magazine journalist in Switzerland not given to probing questioning. Even this publication baulked at publishing these extraordinary statements, so she gave the full works on her blog:
For example yesterday in Geneva, on the first day of spring, we had another “support team” visiting us, those who are always ready to work off their payments while not having anything else to do, any other interests, hobbies or a properly paid job. A group of a few people including a cameraman, a lady of Uzbek origin Mutabar Tadjibaeva, who introduces herself as a president of the «Club des Coeurs Ardents» and guess who else? Exactly! Craig Murray – ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan, who had been scandalously fired from the British Foreign Office. He lived in Tashkent for a long time and had a relationship and even got married to a strip-bar dancer, he lobbied so-called businessmen including those from Pakistan willing to get cotton and other state contracts, those people had contacts with different Uzbek clan representatives including Bekzod Akhmedov. Akhmedov was seen many times in Craig Murray and his pseudo businessmen’s company in dens of iniquity of the capital, Bekzod Akhmedov’s favorite venues. It seems like the group of people that visited us in Geneva wanted to congratulate us with spring and express their grievance by screaming and as they said they wanted me or my sister Lola to come out. They attempted to sneak inside and walk around the house recording it all on video and we had nothing to do, but call the police and make our own video of this March invasion of “human right defenders” as they call themselves.
It is obvious, that those people mentioned above, a group of bloggers and professional PR firm such as R&R were not catalyzed accidentally. The core of the artificially initiated scandal is lost, constant threats, that someone will say something, someone like Bekzod Akhmeodv who is wanted by Interpol due to his relation to the investigation of MTS activities in Uzbekistan, who from the beginning was under the MTS-Russia protection and requested on January, 9 2013 refugee status with his big family. Also threats came for last three months from lawyers who were stating that they will have newspapers like Financial Times publish all they have, all that Bekzod Akhmedov could compose over almost a year which was accepted with pleasure by MTS lobbyists. Where else could you see such involvement at official level and could this be possible without high-reaching goals, even if it is done in such a straight way?
I might as well state for the record that to my knowledge I have never met or had any contact with Mr Bekzod Akhmedov, I have certainly never been in his social company, let alone on a “den of inquity” (though that does sound fun). I have never met any Pakistani businessmen in or to discuss Uzbekistan and I have never sought any role for myself in trading Uzbek cotton.
I certainly did visit Gulnara’s US $25 million mansion in Geneva, because I wanted to see where the proceeds of forced child labour in the Uzbek cotton fields went. I intend to do so again. I hope lots of people will – its at No. 7, Rue Prevote, Cologny, Geneva.
Gulnara’s peculiar attack on me for the “crime” of looking at her house appears a rather desperate reaction to increasing knowledge of her activities. The Chief Executive of Telesonera, Sweden’s largest telecommunications firm, had to resign recently over corrupt payments to Gulnara. In a decision reminiscent of Blair’s shutdown of the BAE Saudi bribes prosecution, Swedish authorities decided there was no public interest in prosecuting. Gulnara’s Swiss registered holding company Zeromax has been declared bankrupt, owing half a billion dollars to the state in taxes, and its assets confiscated then reprivatised to … Gulnara. Russian Telecoms giant MTS has been kicked out of Uzbekistan, substantially reducing available services there.
All of the above were examples of Gulnara kicking out fellow oligarchs from business interests which she held in partnership with others, to take the lot for herself. That has left a lot of despoiled oligarchs rather rueful. This centralisation of cash prior to a succession battle is a very high risk strategy. It is telling that Gulnara refers to my contact with Uzbek “clans”. In the Uzbek context, this does not mean tribe, but rather something more akin to regionally based mafia groupings, with whom the common people of the region have no identity. Gulnara is in the middle of a major rupture with Gafur Rakhimov, the largest mafia boss whose alliance with Karimov had been central to the regime’s stability.
I do not imagine Gulnara really believes I am connected to any of these rival mafia interests, though it is possible she is really that crazy. But plainly she is very rattled, or she would not be drawing all this attention to her business interests.
Two small points from the above. Firstly, one passage seems to reveal that the “interviewer” from Bilan was a chum of hers.
and guess who else? Exactly! Craig Murray – ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan,
I don’t think an ordinary Swiss journalist would have any idea who I was, let alone know I had called at the house.
This is one of my all time favourite tough journalist questions:
You are leading the list of most popular personalities from Central Asia in 2012 on search engines such as Google and Yandex. You are almost every day active on Twitter where you post many of your photos. How is this all related?
Final point – the first sentence of this post refers to me in the third person not because I have gone delusional, but so it works well as a retweet.
I have every hope the Karimov regime will fall in spring 2015.
@ Arbed : will this new law the Swedes are thinking of passing have retro-active effect?
Good Lord, another thread almost being sucked into the Assange Vortex.
@Technicolour
Yes there may have been many murderous atheists, but how many of them committed there crimes in the name of Atheism.
@Jemand.
Excellent clear and concise defense of atheism and highlighting of the inherent contradictions and irrational thought present in any brand of organised religion\mumbo jumbo. Keep up the good work!
@Guano
Loath as I am to converse with you after some of your highly offensive statements regarding ‘The Jews’. How does the West’s intervention in Kosovo fit into your simple, black and white story of ‘Muslims being attacked by the West’?
Habba
My question exactly – I am not aware of the Swedish Legal system putting many people in prison using retrospectively enacted legislation, but to be honest if Team Assange really are so paranoid to believe that the Western powers are out to get him using whatever illegal means they may have at their disposal – then I wouldn’t feel too comfortable as a hostage in the Ecuadorian embassy in London (e.g. they could just let him go – and then the airplane to Ecuador would develop a mysterious problem forcing it to land in the US ect.etc.) and I would reckon my best chance of avoiding such a scenario would be to go public in a Western court and to make an appeal to the public over the head of the authorities.
CE: I was enjoying learning rather a lot from both Jemand and Guano.
“how many of them committed there crimes in the name of Atheism.”
– I think that’s the point, isn’t it? Both CS Lewis and Nietzsche (v much maligned as a thinker) made it. The name in which you commit the horror is unimportant. Of course atheists – Lenin, Hitler – have committed mass atrocities.
But Lenin and Hitler, it could be argued, made a god out of other substances – power, death, fear, suspicion, violence, lies. So they were not true atheists. Could you give me some good examples of a nice atheist?
Macky
Be assured I could pump up the rhetoric to match you bluster if I felt you were worth the effort.
Despite what you say many others who have studied the case closer than you or I, some of whom were close to Assange do not share your view that extradition is more likely if Assange were to submit himself to the legal authorities.
The American Gulag is not common terminology – although it may well be in the circles in which you move.
The original link to PressTV was provided by Mary – seek and you shall find.
I’ve tried politely to address your points – but unless you wish to drop the ad hominems I think I’ll leave it there.
@ Resident Dissident
I can see that Macky has offended you and I would like to help you feel better. Just think of the wonderful “Animal Farm” and recall that the emerging ruling class had snarling dogs as their enforcers.Then see the Eminences as the ruling class of this blog and see Macky as one of their snarling dogs. Voilà!
Apologies to any dogs who might be reading this if the comparison offends you.
**********
La vita è bella, life is good! (put mad dogs down)
http://brainz.org/50-most-brilliant-atheists-all-time/
The CE
One part of the quartet has backed off completely and starting making foam like slugs in a slug pellet zone.
I will change your comment to the negative: I am not loathe to converse with you, because it makes more sense. Black and white I shall reverse into colourful. Muslims being attacked by the West becomes Muslims being helped by the West. Now the question makes sense. My dear friend Guano, Do you think Yugoslavia is better off now than under the communist regime? Yes, CE , I do think it is better off under European freedom than under communist dictatorship. It was the CIA’s Al CIAda that sorted out the problem so that the US did not need to come into direct confrontation with the Soviet Union. The ends, including genocide of Muslims, is seen to justify the means. What worked in Yugoslavia is being repeated now in Syria. It makes me want to scream, same as it did when the Tory bitch was sipping cups of tea in Paris with Milosevich. You on the other hand do not feel the necessity for human feelings.
CE: thanks, I was instantly thinking ‘yeay for brilliant atheists’. Have only read the first two, and nothing changes my mind (although so far they seem sweet but austere?)
“The ends, including genocide of Muslims, is seen to justify the means” – not by most people, it blooming isn’t.
This extract from Joseph Farrell’s letter to Jemima Khan is relevant to the discussion above:
“Over a lunch you questioned this fear of extradition to the US, and when I asked you what you would do in his position you refused to answer the question. I asked you more than six times what you would do in his shoes. Having offered to cooperate with the Swedish investigation non-stop for the past two years and been refused with no proper explanation, and believing that you would end up in an American prison for decades, in solitary confinement and under SAMs, what would you do? You never gave me a concrete answer. Instead, you skirted the question with another question and discounted the numerous legal opinions out there, favouring instead an article by David Allen Green. I reiterated that Julian had never said that it would be likely in practice that he would face the death penalty, although the Espionage Act permits this. But more to the point, and one that everyone always ignores, there was (and still is) the fear of being extradited to face life imprisonment and almost certainly torture or other inhumane and degrading treatment for his publishing activities.
I told you that the Swedish authorities could, if they wanted to, charge Julian in absentia. Even if they were to do that, they should, according to their own procedures, conduct an interview with him before requesting his extradition. I repeated that he remains available even in the embassy for questioning by the Swedish authorities should they wish to employ the standard procedures they use regularly in other cases.
I explained to you how the argument that “he is no more vulnerable to extradition to the US from Sweden than he is from the UK” is a red herring. I explained why the US had not already requested his extradition from the UK, because this would create a case of competing extradition requests that the Home Secretary would have to judicially review and prioritise one over the other, thereby creating political embarrassment for a major ally whichever way the decision went. I cited the US Ambassador’s own admission that the US would wait to see what happened with the Swedish case before they made a move.”
I am having a bizarre argument with GK and her associates on twitter @gkstockdale. Apparently Criag is trying to copy Jk Rowling.
@RD, drop the “I’m so polite, but you’re not” nonsense; I tell you straight that I honestly find your reasoning to be utterly unconvincing, to the extent of being irrational, and you call it an ad hominem attack; you would be better off trying to address why your reasoning appears so unconvincing, rather than try to pass off criticism as ad hominem attacks, along with fake indignant hurt.
People unable to undertake rational debate often resort to evasive tactics, such as hair splitting semantics, shoals of red herrings, marathon distance whatabouteries, or dishonest accusations of ad hominems, complete of course with layers of fake indignant hurt; whereas it’s the people you time waste with these tactics that you should be apologizing too.
“The American Gulag is not common terminology”
Four million hits on Google; here’s the first three
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/06/an-american-gulag-descending-into-madness-at-supermax/258323/
http://www.amazon.com/American-Gulag-Inside-Immigration-Prisons/dp/0520246691
http://www.americangulag.org/
“The American Gulag is not common terminology”
“Snarling dog” Macky will have to do better than that with his Google hits. His second example is in fact a review on Amazon of a book with that title and the third li,ls to a website whose very purpose is to propagate that idea. Not very convincing as examples intended to demonstrate that the term in on everyone’s lips.
***********
La vita è bella, life is good! (muzzle snarling dogs)
Gary
Just looked at that conversation – what a strange little court Gulnara has. And thanks.
Dear Habba-Clown,
Beneath that grinning clown mask, you are a very sick & twisted individual, even for a troll; I figured you out long before my initial exchanged of exactly two posts already confirmed what I already knew; for those that missed it, here’s a re-post of this little exchange which followed yet another round of Habbabuk’s constant advocating for attacking Syria, and a previous expressed desire that Assad to be “given the Gaddafi treatment”;
Habbabkuk; “Still nothing to say on torture by the Assad regime (father and son)?”
Macky; “Yes, unfortunately Evil exists in this world; and it manifests itself in a myriad of ways, such as advocating death & destruction on a whole Country, or expressing a desire to see somebody tortured to death”
Habbabkuk; “So Macky sees Evil – note the capital letter, it’s impressive – in the Syrian opposition (“..advocating death and destruction on a whole Country..”) and in poor little Habbabkuk, but not, apparently, in the Assad dictators (father and son).
So that’s Macky well exposed”
(Note the deliberate misunderstanding of equating the advocacy of death & destruction not with his own obvious advocating, but on the Syrian opposition, and note the apparent imbecilic lie that I didn’t acknowledge the use of torture by the Assad regime despite my “Yes, unfortunately Evil exists in this world;” in direct reply to his question. A deliberate misrepresentation followed by a direct answer apparently going over his/hers head; it would take a certain amount of honest stupidity for one of these to occur, and only a deliberate fake stupidity for both, and lapses in fake stupidity is a classic troll tactic. Also note the be deliberate attempts to start an argument with the attempted provocation of “So that’s Macky well exposed”, yet another classic troll characteristic.)
The fact that you have not been long banned, can only be due to the lemming-like leniency of both Jon & Craig, who appear unable to realise to extent of the disruption, offense, & undermining of this Blog you have & continue to cause.
(@RD, you may class this as ad hominem if you wish, whereas I see it as telling it as it is, and holding up a mirror so the Clown can see how sick he really is).
Gary, could you post a salient extract?
RD wrote, “…if Team Assange really are so paranoid to believe that the Western powers are out to get him using whatever illegal means they may have at their disposal…”
They don’t need to be that paranoid, RD, really. Not unless you’re wilfully ignorant of the facts.
For instance – William Hague was seriously (and publicly) discussing the invasion of the embassy where he was holed up. That (in case you don’t know) is thoroughly and fundamentally illegal under International Law.
For instance – why don’t the Swedes go and visit him for an interview in the embassy, if all they want (in their good honest faith, naturally!) is just that – an interview? Why don’t the Swedes ever provide a straight answer to this simple question?
There’s so much else to this case, but you throw your arms wide, and give a baffled, “What? What?”, hoping only to take the ignorant along with your pretend bemusement as to why he simply doesn’t just walk out and “clear his name”.
Maintaining that you think this whole international incident is solely about the investigation of an alleged sex offence is – frankly – unconvincing in the extreme.
*
You do the same about the US “justice” system too. Anyone who knows anything about US justice understands that it’s a 3-tier system. In the top one, for the rich and powerful, you’ll get away with anything at all. (Apart from occasional exceptions, such as Bernie Madoff, who performed a serious crime – stealing from rich people.) Even then, they go to a country-club jail, and never serve hard time.
The second tier is for middle-class types, and your chances depend a lot on how much justice you can afford.
The third is for the poor, particularly poor minorities, who will go to the for-profit jail system regardless.
The quality of life in these jails, particularly for those who are not hardened criminals, is terrible. It beggars belief to hear any sane or humane person deny that.
*
Perhaps you’re just unaware of an awful lot, RD, but you’d be advised to quit this denial from ignorance, which appears to be your primary choice of argument.
Glenn UK,
I agree with your post above and think it excellent.
You shouted me out on another post recently as someone who,in effect,spouted nonsense.
I do hope-should you get the chance-you re-read my posts then and realise all i was trying to do was to decry and pillory bullies.
That was the simple,perhaps inarticulate,point i was trying to raise.
Cheers.
Jives: We haven’t had direct discussion since that bit about direct democracy and staying in the EU, iirc (“swivel-eyed” anti-euro types, maybe?) – that specifically addressed those who _are_ rabidly anti-EU. It might have been poorly phrased, such that you took my comment to mean all anti-EU people, at which you took umbrage.
Didn’t see a post from you following my clarification, so no – I wasn’t saying that you “spouted nonsense” actually, and apparently you didn’t see my follow-up.
But I’m not one to hold a grudge (generally speaking) in any case, and I realise you’re a good sort. No hard feelings were felt at the time – rather a pain at the misunderstanding. And thanks for your comments here too.
Habbabkuk, 7.01pm
“@ Arbed : will this new law the Swedes are thinking of passing have retro-active effect?”
Short answer is I don’t know – they haven’t passed it yet. However, the US government confirmed quite recently that they consider the fact that Wikileaks is still in possession of the leaked Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs and still continues to publish to be an “ongoing crime”, so maybe the US/Swedes would say there was no need to use this new law retroactively.
Here’s some general background info on the US side of things. Lots of links to original sources in it.
Background for UN Talk – Ongoing Investigation into WikiLeaks
Wednesday 26 September, 12pm BST:
http://wikileaks.org/Background-for-UN-Talk-Ongoing.html
@ Arbed :
I understand that this new law is not yet on the statute books, but presumably the corresponding bill aleady exists. The latter would of course be in the public domain and therefore it should be relatively easy to find out what provisions it foresees in respect of the entry into effect of the law’s provisions and the law’s applicability (ie, on the question of so-called “ongoing crimes”)?
Habba
Many thanks for the analogy – Orwell’s snarling dogs were of course the NKVD. Given this snarling dog’s adopted master I cannot get over the impression of him going home to sip a saucer of milk while his master purrs with approval.
He should also learn how to do a proper Google search if he had bothered to put inverted commas around american gulag then he would only have had c300000 hits – I’ll let him work out what the other 3.7m relate to – on the other hand he could try and think up a couple of new ad hominems (hint try and make them amusing – they go down a lot better)
Glenn
The straw men are of your making – I have never claimed that the whole affair Assange is just about a rape case – just that Assange should answer to Swedish legal processes on that claim and not use it as a cover for his other arguments with the authorities – and this is also what his former less paranoid friends say. I have also never ever denied that there are deep problems with the US legal and prison systems (the late great Christopher Hitchens wrote many essays pointing this out if you are interested) just that the comparison to the Russian GULAG was infantile and ahistroical
Arbed
Can we presume that you have been unable to find no cases of Sweden locking up people using retrospective legislation?
Technicolour
14 Mar, 2013 – 8:38 pm
“Of course atheists – Lenin, Hitler – have committed mass atrocities.”
Lenin?
Don’t you mean Stalin?
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
14 Mar, 2013 – 9:08 pm
“Just think of the wonderful “Animal Farm” and recall that the emerging ruling class had snarling dogs as their enforcers. Then see the Eminences as the ruling class of this blog and see Macky as one of their snarling dogs.”
That’s a bit rich coming from an intellectual poodle.
resident dissident
15 Mar, 2013 – 9:34 am
“Can we presume that you have been unable to find no cases of Sweden locking up people using retrospective legislation?”
Double negative my dear chump
Scorgie
10m died during the Russian Civil War do you really believe that the Whites committed all the attrocities, and that Lenin was unaware of some of the attrocities committed by the Reds? The Cheka was established under Lenin. I also suggest that you look at how some republics were forced into the Soviet Union. He may not have been as bad as Stalin but there was plenty of blood on Father Lenin’s hand or make an omelette without breaking a few eggs which was his favoured euphemism.
“For instance – why don’t the Swedes go and visit him for an interview in the embassy, if all they want (in their good honest faith, naturally!) is just that – an interview? Why don’t the Swedes ever provide a straight answer to this simple question? ”
Possibly because they consider that they shouldn’t put themselves out for someone who has in effect stuck two fingers up to their justice system – they probably consider that Assange should be anserable to them rather than vice versa. Most legal systems in the world expect the accused to come to them rather than offering a door to door service.
One question I haven’t heard answered by Team Assange is why they haven’t offered to submit to questioning in the Ecuadorian embassy in Stockholm providing that they would be provided with assurances re safe transportation from London? It might actually offer a diplomatic way out of the current impasse.
Er, yes, I meant Lenin, though you could add Stalin too, of course. David Shub’s biography v interesting, among others.