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.
HABEMUS PAPEM – REJOICE !
And now, dear Emincences, get to work digging out the dirt. Don’t disappoint me now!
Habbakuk, I’m pretty sure that Mary doesn’t have a ‘favorite (sic) butcher’, unless it’s a local one – so perhaps you could cite a post where she expresses admiration for a mass murderer?
Good for RT on Uzbekistan.
Thanks Uzbek and KRF for trying your best to keep this thread alive.
But how can the sincere, but somewhat forlorn hope of two ex-pats lead to the downfall of the karimov regime in 2015?
Tell us more, if you can square this with others, as to what is happening regards to his imminent removal.
What can we do to help those intend on change, cause this will take some time to organise, does it not?
“Please note that I have had no communication with H yet he/she comes in on this page with one go at Nevermind, another at Doug Scorgie, then follows with a derogatory indirect comment about me to Resident Dissident and then a direct obscure dig at me above. Was talking about the price of chicken feed ‘a tug at the heart strings’ or maybe the visit to the pigs? I think not. He/she becomes more ridiculous by the day. Even the use of the word ‘tactic’ is telling. Crazy”
Note the style, the choice of words, the agitation, the righteous indignation. Are you losing it?
PS – loved your post about Prince Charles in the refugee camp. Was that a “derogatory indirect comment” or an “indirect obscure dig”? I can’t make my mind up, please help.
Res Diss
If the BBC is not reporting something because its paymasters wish it not to do so, and RT reports the story then we’re better informed, are we not.
It’s quite simple.
I’m under no illusions about the West’s paymasters or the Russian paymasters.
My point to you is that it’s precisely because they have differing interests that RT provides balance to the self-interested nonsense in US and UK media.
Habbakuk – no? No source?
Resident Dissident: while Herbie’s researching RT coverage of Belarus, could you please find me the Times’ sustained campaign against human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia? Thank you.
“Habbakuk, I’m pretty sure that Mary doesn’t have a ‘favorite (sic) butcher’, unless it’s a local one – so perhaps you could cite a post where she expresses admiration for a mass murderer?”
@ Technicolour :
Probably not, but one can, I think, infer from her posts, that she is rather favorably inclined towards the Iranian ayatollahs and President (for the moment) Assad the Son. Perhaps on the basis that any enemy of the US must be a friend.
If she feels like condemning them as tyrants and egregious human rights violaters I would be very happy to admit that I was mistaken and offer her my apologies.
***********
La vita è bella, life is good!
“Clear off” – Mary
How terribly rude.
The last time I checked it was Craig Murray’s name at the top of this blog, what possible right to do you have to tell people to clear off?
This blogs disparaging attitude to Western media contrasts sharply with the current desire to defend the ‘journalists’ at RT and PTV.
@ Herbie :
“My point to you is that it’s precisely because they have differing interests that RT provides balance to the self-interested nonsense in US and UK media”
In the interests of achieving the balance you are so keen on, I suggest that the above sentence of yours should have read as follows:
“My point to you is that it’s precisely because they have different interests that the self-interested nonsense in RT provides balance to the self-interested nonsense in US and UK media”
I’m sure on balance that you’ll agree with me – on a balanced way, of course.
Habbakuk says of his failure to defend his claims about Mary:
“Probably not, but one can, I think, infer from her posts, that she is rather favorably inclined towards the Iranian ayatollahs and President (for the moment) Assad the Son. Perhaps on the basis that any enemy of the US must be a friend.”
I don’t think that’s it at all. I certainly think that that’s what neocons would say, and of course have said many times, but as we know they lie on principle.
I think that people increasingly realise that the West is the instigator in most of these wars and murderous conflicts and not to the benefit of their constituent populations, but rather to an increasingly small elite. People realise too that this very same elite is robbing them blind in the process. The criticism is designed to undermine the West’s elites in their pursuance of that agenda, and if it sometime involves saying that Chavez or whoever is not quite as bad as he’s been charcaterized in the West, then that’s no bad thing. They rarely are as bad in fact, and I’m afraid, though you wouldn’t know it from US UK media, our own leaders are much much worse.
Technicolour
13 Mar, 2013 – 1:51 pm
“What “hypocrisy” is that, Doug Scorgie?”
The hypocrisy I mention is that of representatives of the British state, Prince Charles and Camilla, visiting a refugee camp in Jordan when Jordan is allowing the training of ‘Syrian rebels’ in its country which can only exacerbate the refugee problem.
Then, these same representatives, going on to visit one of the worst regimes in the world (Saudi Arabia) which is actively supplying weapons to those same ‘rebels’.
You say:
“According to a 2010 Pew Global Attitudes survey” – had it not occurred to you that the answers to the survey might, just a little, have been influenced by the regime? No?”
I merely quoted survey. If you think the Pew Research Centre would not take such considerations into account then perhaps you could research that for yourself or even contact the organisation to find out.
Resident D said, “and what should that judgement[on free speech] be based upon…”
I was referring to ‘Reporters without Borders’ agenda to be clear. Well OK I can generalise and pull something out of the UK campaigner free speech bag. How about Brian Haw RIP.
Brian was well known for his work with deprived and ‘off the rail’ kids in Redditch. In 2001 he stood near Parliament and shouted for the thousands of kids in a Western SANCTIONED Iraq dying of disease(mostly bacterial).
When the Westminster Council failed to prosecute him, the Establishment, fed up with Brian’s megaphone broadcasts, conjured up, then threw, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 at him – it was argued Brian could be a ‘terrorist’ planting a bomb near Parliament. The government won on appeal. Brian later died of cancer.
Tony Benn said “Brian Haw was a man of principle […] his death marks the end of a historic enterprise by a man who gave everything to support his beliefs”
Habbakuk, claims that RT and US UK media are as bad as one another.
Not quite. The difference lies in what each is attempting to achieve.
For the West’s media organisations, they have to construct a false narrative, which is roughly that we are benign and all the horrors we do are but mistakes. They need to spend a lot of time talking up baddies abroad. They lie in order to achieve this. They then have to ensure as much as possible to keep any stories which challenge this narrative out of media. That’s quite a big job, especially today.
So the above is for Western media working on its home turf.
By contrast RT don’t have to worry about any of this at all. All they have to do is add in the stories which disrupt this Western media narrative, and obviously there will be plenty of these. That’s why the West is so keen to omit them from media and clamp down on whistleblowers. So you see, they don’t have to make anything up. They just have to report that which the Western media doesn’t report.
That’s RT working on Western turf.
On balance therefore, RT will be much the better outlet for those looking for stories about what the US and UK etc are up to.
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires – an acknowledgement that the world has changed.
Doug Scorgie: still not sure who is being hypocritical, who is being misinformed and who is being used; but thanks for detail. As for the survey, you didn’t answer my question, but that’s OK.
Habbakuk: hmmm. Don’t think that’s right, either.
My word. He’s young. He’s only 76! Bergoglio to be known as Pope Francis. From Buenos Aires.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Bergoglio
To me a clear perception Herbie is demonstrated in your post 7:07pm – without bluster, crowing or puffing you have incontrovertibly described the RT wavelength.
@ the Habbu-Clown; re definition of a troll
Stephen Fry comments towards the end of this, iro of trolls, for some reason made me think of you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4byn2CIwec0&feature=player_embedded
@Jon/Craig, would it be a good idea to have a little panel somewhere to show & allow easy access to older threads that are still active ?
On the new pope:
“Bergoglio is an accomplished theologian who distanced himself from liberation theology early in his career. He is thought to be close to Comunione e Liberazione, a conservative lay movement.”
Pity really. Wouldn’t now have been a good time to embrace liberation theology, given that that’s precisely the direction most of the current leaders in south America are taking.
There were many Catholic clergy raped, murdered and tortured in south America by agents of the US, who despised them for their concern for the poor, whilst the US was pushing vile dictatorship upon the region. I do hope that the new pope will not be seen to have had too close a connection to these killers and rapists, but I fear that’s all too unlikely.
Pope Francis, though. He’s gotta be taking the piss!!
H troll,
It’s HABEMUS PAPAM not PAPEM
age quod agis
Resident dissident
13 Mar, 2013 – 3:16 pm
“Of course those wishing for a more balanced view than PressTV as to what is really happening in Iran with regard to press activities may wish to look here.”
http://en.rsf.org/iran.html
ResDis,
Reporters Without Borders is not an organisation interested in truthful reporting, only freedom of the ‘Western’ press and media to report freely i.e. as they see fit. It is clear that, in Britain for example, the main-stream corporate and establishment media demands press freedom but then go on to lie, misinform, distract, censor by omission and manipulate public perceptions for their own political advantage.
It is interesting to note that up to the present Reporters Without Borders has remained completely silent about the banning of Press TV channels.
The etymology for ‘Francis’ is the root word from Latin, “Frenchman” Hmmmmmmm.
New post up folks. Bradley Manning speaks.
Ben
He’s the first Jesuit Pope ever.
ANON; Opus dei wouldn’t let a Liberation Theology Cleric in the Popeseat. He is a Jesuit in name only (JINO)
Pleased to see that some people on Medialens agree with me on the royal visit to the refugee camp in Jordan.
Chas and Camilla do their bit for the propaganda effort…
Posted by Alan Haynes on March 13, 2013, 8:34 am
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21766971
Re: Chas and Camilla do their bit for the propaganda effort…
Posted by Curtis on March 13, 2013, 11:03 am, in reply to “Chas and Camilla do their bit for the propaganda effort…”
They might have considered a visit to some of the Iraqi refugees in Jordan too, then again, there would no propaganda value there. According to Wikipedia Jordan has 750,000 Iraqi refugees and Syria has one million, these could be underestimates of course.
~~~~
The royals go on to Qatar and Saudi Arabia next, both funders of the rebel rabbles in Syria and without whose presence, there would not be a stream of refugees leaving Syria.
Some of the moral equivalence on display is disturbing.
Press Freedoms in the West and Russia\Iran are most clearly not two sides of the same coin.
British Journalists do not have to live in fear of being assassinated on their own doorstep if they write a piece critical of Dave or Liz, I would suggest it is rather different in Moscow\Tehran.
It interests me that Bergoglio, a man who is distinctly against neo-clericalism is elected pope just weeks after Argentina approved a memorandum of understanding with Iran to jointly investigate the 1994 terrorist bombing of the Jewish federation building in Buenos Aires. The terrorist blast killed 85 people and wounded 300.
Bergoglio signed a joint statement denouncing terrorism while many others blamed Iran for the terrible act.
Ben,
Some say the Jesuits have always been running the show. That’s why they created Opus Dei to take the flack. Smoke and Mirrors they say.
Give me the child etc as they also used to say.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
13 Mar, 2013 – 4:38 pm
@ Doug Scourge :
“You are indignant – nay, you seem positively livid – about 7 recent executions in Saudi Arabia.”
“But I somehow don’t recall you ever having said anything on this blog about the thousands of death sentences pronounced and carried out every year in China?”
“But perhaps you post about them on another blog?”
Habbabkuk
If I appear indignant about the seven men put to death yesterday in Saudi Arabia perhaps it is because, as I mentioned in my post, there is evidence that the men were tortured into confessions and were given unfair trials.
If you want to research that for yourself all the information you need is contained in my earlier post.
As for China I condemn the government for the profligate use of the death penalty as I condemn Iran and the United States for the same reason.
I am in fact opposed to the death penalty altogether.