Craig Murray, pt II

Following on from the earlier post about Craig Murray’s troubles over his book, we have this transcript of fax sent 25 March 2003 (pinched from Bloggerheads) from the Foreign Office (the actual fax is here):

From: Michael Wood, Legal Advisor
Date: 13 March 2003
CC: PS/PUS; Matthew Kidd, WLD
Linda Duffield

UZBEKISTAN: INTELLIGENCE POSSIBLY OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE

1. Your record of our meeting with HMA Tashkent recorded that Craig had said that his understanding was that it was also an offence under the UN Convention on Torture to receive or possess information under torture. I said that I did not believe that this was the case, but undertook to re-read the Convention.


2. I have done so. There is nothing in the Convention to this effect. The nearest thing is article 15 which provides: "Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."


3. This does not create any offence. I would expect that under UK law any statement established to have been made as a result of torture would not be admissible as evidence.

[signed]
M C Wood
Legal Adviser

There are some real sick bastards working for the government; it’s people like Mr. Wood who give the rest of us lawyers a bad reputation.

This would explain why the government went to the House of Lords to try and get torture allowed in our courts.