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Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist
Reposted from Craig Murray (Original post date was 6th september 2007)
“I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you. You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media becuase he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter:
“Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.”
Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke “Gorbachev”, a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue.
Usmanov’s pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991 President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the “Pardon” because of his alliance with Usmanov’s mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on Gorbachev’s side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin standing on the tanks outside the White House.
Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World’s most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the “privatisation” process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.
Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the country’s natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand.
Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through Putin’s long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski. Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college. Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests outside Russia, Usmanov’s role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom’s bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.
Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has bought out - with the owners having no choice - the only independent national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window.
All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist’s death, is set out in great detail here:
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html
Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that this is not particularly remarkable. Rape by the powerful is an everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand page 120. If anyone has more detail on the specific case involving Usmanov please add a comment.
I reported back in 2002 or 2003 in an Ambassadorial top secret telegram to the Foreign Office that Usmanov was the most likely favoured successor of President Karimov as totalitarian leader of Uzbekistan. I also outlined the Gazprom deal (before it happened) and the present by Usmanov to Putin (though in Jastrzebski’s name) of half of Mapobank, a Russian commercial bank owned by Usmanov. I will never forget the priceless reply from our Embassy in Moscow. They said that they had never even heard of Alisher Usmanov, and that Jastrzebski was a jolly nice friend of the Ambassador who would never do anything crooked.
Sadly, I expect the football authorities will be as purblind. Football now is about nothing but money, and even Arsenal supporters - as tight-knit and homespun a football community as any - can be heard saying they don’t care where the money comes from as long as they can compete with Chelsea.
I fear that is very wrong. Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term.”
Opposition leader tortured with drugs
Reposted from Craig Murray who first posted this on 30th October 2005.
Today Sanjar Umarov lies, cold, unclothed, drugged and beaten, on the bare floor of a solitary confinement cell in Tashkent.
Last month I had dinner with Sanjar Umarov at Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, just across from the White House. Sanjar leads Uzbekistan’s newest and best publicised opposition grouping, Sunshine Uzbekistan, which had largely taken over the Peasants and Entrepreneurs’ Party, itself a fairly recent addition to the opposition ranks.
There was a great deal of suspicion about Umarov from longer standing opposition figures. Umarov was an oligarch, from one of the leading regime families. He had made money in oil and cotton trading, both sectors which cannot be accessed without an inside political track. He had also been involved in the Uzdunrobita mobile telephone company, in which the major Uzbek partner was Gulnara Karimova, the President’s daughter. In March 2004 Karimova sold her shares in Uzdunrobita to a Russian company for 212 million dollars, a figure which places a much higher than realistic value on the company.
This transaction was an important stage in the peculiar business dealings between Russia and the Karimov family, which culminated in last November’s deal to allocate the bulk of Uzbekistan’s natural gas reserves to Gazprom. This deal was negotiated between Gulnara Karimova and Alisher Usmanov, the Uzbek born Russian oligarch who bought a substantial number of shares in Corus, the British steel company. Usmanov is also a Director of Gazprom responsible for their affairs in the former Soviet Union outside Russia.
Gulnara received a large cash payment - $88 million, according to my sources – on completion of the Gazpron deal, with further payments to come as gas is exported. Alisher Usmanov gave Putin a sweetener of 40% of the shares in Mapo Bank, an important Russian business bank with a close relationship to several blue chip western firms operating in Russia. The shares were made over to Piotr Jastrejebski, Putin’s private secretary who was a college friend of Alisher Usmanov and shared a flat with him.
This web is closely associated with Karimov’s succession strategy. He is desperate for Gulnara to succeed him, and the cash and Russian support is building up her power base. Some sort of Alisher Usmanov/Gulnara Karimova alliance is Karimov’s first choice to take over, in six or seven years time. This is the background to the diplomatic revolution of the last six months, with Karimov abandoning the US and turning back to the embrace of Mother Russia.
It is worth recalling that the Karimov regime had been aggressively anti-Russian, in terms of both propaganda, and of practical measures of linguistic discrimination. Approximately two million ethnic Russians have fled Uzbekistan since independence in 1991; about 400,000 are left.
This reorientation towards Russia went along with fierce anti-enterprise measures designed to stifle any entrepreneurial activity not under direct control of the Karimov family. This explained the physical closures of borders and bazaars, the crackdown on crash transactions and the channelling of all commercial activity through the state banks.
These developments not only brought still greater economic hardship to the poor, they created losers among the wealthy elite. Sanjar Umarov is an archetypal example of such “New losers”.
Umarov had studied business administration in Tennessee on a US government scholarship. His trading interests had widened from their Uzbek base. He has a home in Memphis, and a green card. His children are US citizens. Among the Uzbek elite, a class had come into existence of people who could do business with the West. Their business was now being cut off by Karimov.
It would be wrong to credit Sanjar Umarov with purely selfish motives. Unlike so many of his countrymen, he has the education and experience to understand that Karimov’s policies are economically disastrous. Over dinner, we shared our frustration over this: Uzbekistan is not a naturally poor country. It is extremely well endowed with gas, gold, uranium, iron, coal and most rare minerals you can think of. It is historically fertile and could be so again once the government-dictated cotton monoculture is abandoned.
Uzbekistan’s plight is inflicted on it by appalling government. Umarov and I both believe it could recover surprisingly quickly once basic economic freedoms are established, of which the first must be to take the land from the state and give it to the peasant farmers. Over dinner we discussed other ideas, such as voucher privatisation schemes to enable the common people to benefit from Uzbekistan’s mineral wealth. I found Umarov attentive, interested and pro-active.
The outlawed Uzbek opposition has been fractured. There are genuine, historical differences between the Erk and Birlik parties, and those differences are vital to a democracy. But, until we achieve democracy, people need to work together against Karimov. The parties had moved to do that, to their great credit, but there was understandable resentment and suspicion from those who had suffered in opposition for years, towards a “Johnny Come Lately” like Sanjar Umarov.
Well, he is certainly suffering now in his Tashkent cell. And, if Karimov is to be overthrown, in practice some reform-minded “insiders” are going to be needed to build the necessary national unity for reconstruction. That has to be faced. There are several prominent Uzbek opposition leaders, and Umarov now joins such figures as Mohammed Salih, Abdurahim Polat and others. One day let us hope the Uzbek people will freely choose between their politicians. For now, personal ambition needs to be subordinated to the need to end Karimov’s reign of terror.
The urgent need now is for all the opposition parties, including the Sunshine Coalition, to agree a platform of basic reform in the economy, the constitution, the police and judiciary, agriculture, education and many other areas. The broad lines of change need to be ready to roll out once Karimov goes. The most useful thing donors and foreign NGOs could do now would be to set up a programme outside Uzbekistan working with all parties to agree a plan of basic reform.
I found Umarov engaging and enthusiastic. I urged him to be cautious about returning to Uzbekistan, and was rather puzzled by his apparent confidence that he could pursue his political aims inside Uzbekistan without personal danger. Plainly he had good contacts with US official circles – since Karimov turned against the US, a pro-Western oligarch is a saleable commodity in Washington.
That Umarov was arrested at the time of the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to Tashkent is a sign of the strength and ugliness of the current Uzbek/Russian relationship. Umarov is being kept in solitary confinement. Nodira Khidatoyova of his party claims to have been told by an inside source that the Prokurator’s office have been instructed to destroy his mind through psychotropic drugs.
That is certainly feasible. There have been many examples of prisoners being forcibly injected, and Elena Urlaeva, another dissident I know, is currently undergoing such “treatment” in a psychiatric institution. Sanjar Umarov’s lawyer seems to provide some evidence for this. He found him naked, in solitary confinement, making repetitive movements and unable to communicate coherently.
The response of the international community to the brutal treatment of an opposition leader has been pathetic, as always with Uzbekistan. The UK, as EU Presidency, issued a pious statement hoping that “International norms of treatment would be respected”, when plainly they are not being.
Umarov is now being charged with “embezzlement”, and the UK hopes these charges will be “properly investigated”. How stupidly, utterly, inadequate! There is no “proper” investigation procedure in Uzbekistan, where 99% of those tried are convicted, and dissidents are framed literally every day, usually with narcotics or firearms offences. To pretend there is a shred of legitimacy to this treatment of Sanjar Umarov is a nonsense. Why is an alleged embezzler naked in solitary confinement?
If corruption is the real concern of the Uzbek authorities, Karimov and his daughter would be the first arrested. The international community, and the UK in particular, needs a much tougher response before Umarov dies in jail.
Indymedia UK Facing Legal Censorship… again!
IMC UK legal | 06.10.2007 08:25 | Analysis | Indymedia | Other Press | Repression | Technology
Indymedia UK has been issued with a takedown notice [10th of September & 21st of September] from lawyers acting for Alisher Usmanov. The notice served to Indymedia charged Indymedia with publishing allegedly libellous accusations about Usmanov, one of the richest men in Russia, recently linked to a possible hostile takeover of Arsenal FC.
The author of the posting, Craig Murray, is a former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and claims to have inside knowledge of the businessman’s allegedly illegal dealings. Murray was sacked by the UK government for exposing the Uzbek government’s use of torture to attain ‘intelligence’ information, and for exposing and criticising UK-US support for a vicious dictator in pursuit of resources.
Murray’s allegations are that Usmanov “is a criminal”, “a gangster and racketeer”. Allegations of criminality seem partly to have been inferred from his connections to “Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov”. However, Murray also suggested that Usmanov has a criminal past, having been charged with “various offences” in the Soviet Union.
Usmanov’s lawyers minded Murray that Usmanov was pardoned, and all charges against him were removed from police records. However, in response to what seems an inaccurate statement from Usmanov’s lawyers, Murray alleged that “Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke ‘Gorbachev’, a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue”. Furthermore, Murray implies that the pardon was spurious because the real source was the Dictator of Uzbekistan, Islom Karimov.
Karimov himself is an unsavoury character. On completing his investigation into allegations of torture in Karimov’s Uzbekistan, the United Nations Special Rapporteur noted that the use of torture was ‘pervasive and persistent’. He also reported that he had ‘no doubt that the system of torture is condoned, if not encouraged, at the level of the heads of the places of detention where it takes place or of the chief investigators’
Though evidence to support Murray’s allegations has not yet been presented directly to Indymedia UK (but has been collected in his book “Murder in Samarkand”), the Daily Mail informs us that, ‘[r]eports years ago claimed Britain’s National Criminal Intelligence Service was monitoring him for alleged links — never proven — to suspected mafia figures.’ More recently, the allegations have been repeated by Tom Wise MEP in the European Parliament
Indymedia UK is now waiting for Usmanov’s lawyers to confirm exactly what information posted on the web site is defamatory, and it looks like they have resolved to remove any defamatory material. Indymedia, as with other small non-commercial media groups, has very limited options available to them due to the UK’s archaic and elitist libel laws.
Indymedia hopes, however, to avoid the forms of complete censorship that other web hosts have pursued.
For further information on this case, see Bloggerheads | Chicken Yoghurt | Moscow Times.
For further information on Murray’s research on UK-US (at least tacit) support for terrorism in Uzbekistan, see
Legality, Morality and the War on Terror: [ video | audio | report ].
No to Torture - former British ambassador to Uzbekistan speaks out against UK/US torture collaboration [ audio 1 | audio 2 | report ]
Torture and The “War on Terror”: [ audio 1 | report ]
IMC UK legal
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Uzbek Opposition Leader Tortured, the West Does Nothing
Craig Murray | 30.10.2005 01:46 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Globalisation
Sanjar Umarov, leader of the Uzbek opposition Sunshine Coalition, is currently in solitary confinement suffering torture by psychotropic drugs. Craig Murray analyses the complex realpolitik behind the lack of international response.
Opposition Leader Tortured with Drugs
Today Sanjar Usmanov lies, naked, cold, drugged and beaten, on the bare floor of a solitary confinement cell in Tashkent.
Last month I had dinner with Sanjar Umarov at Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, just across from the White House. Sanjar leads Uzbekistan’s newest and best publicised opposition grouping, Sunshine Uzbekistan, which had largely taken over the Peasants and Entrepreneurs’ Party, itself a fairly recent addition to the opposition ranks.
There was a great deal of suspicion about Umarov from longer standing opposition figures. Umarov was an oligarch, from one of the leading regime families. He had made money in oil and cotton trading, both sectors which cannot be accessed without an inside political track. He had also been involved in the Uzdunrobita mobile telephone company, in which the major Uzbek partner was Gulnara Karimova, the President’s daughter. In March 2004 Karimova sold her shares in Uzdunrobita to a Russian company for 212 million dollars, a figure which places a much higher than realistic value on the company.
This transaction was an important stage in the peculiar business dealings between Russia and the Karimov family, which culminated in last November’s deal to allocate the bulk of Uzbekistan’s natural gas reserves to Gazprom. This deal was negotiated between Gulnara Karimova and Alisher Usmanov, the Uzbek born Russian oligarch who bought a substantial number of shares in Corus, the British steel company. Usmanov is also a Director of Gazprom responsible for their affairs in the former Soviet Union outside Russia.
Gulnara received a large cash payment - $88 million, according to my sources – on completion of the Gazpron deal, with further payments to come as gas is exported. Alisher Usmanov gave Putin a sweetener of 40% of the shares in Mapo Bank, an important Russian business bank with a close relationship to several blue chip western firms operating in Russia. The shares were made over to Piotr Jastrejebski, Putin’s private secretary who was a college friend of Alisher Usmanov and shared a flat with him.
This web is closely associated with Karimov’s succession strategy. He is desperate for Gulnara to succeed him, and the cash and Russian support is building up her power base. Some sort of Alisher Usmanov/Gulnara Karimova alliance is Karimov’s first choice to take over, in six or seven years time. This is the background to the diplomatic revolution of the last six months, with Karimov abandoning the US and turning back to the embrace of Mother Russia.
It is worth recalling that the Karimov regime had been aggressively anti-Russian, in terms of both propaganda, and of practical measures of linguistic discrimination. Approximately two million ethnic Russians have fled Uzbekistan since independence in 1991; about 400,000 are left.
This reorientation towards Russia went along with fierce anti-enterprise measures designed to stifle any entrepreneurial activity not under direct control of the Karimov family. This explained the physical closures of borders and bazaars, the crackdown on crash transactions and the channelling of all commercial activity through the state banks.
These developments not only brought still greater economic hardship to the poor, they created losers among the wealthy elite. Sanjar Umarov is an archetypal example of such “New losers”.
Umarov had studied business administration in Tennessee on a US government scholarship. His trading interests had widened from their Uzbek base. He has a home in Memphis, and a green card. His children are US citizens. Among the Uzbek elite, a class had come into existence of people who could do business with the West. Their business was now being cut off by Karimov.
It would be wrong to credit Sanjar Umarov with purely selfish motives. Unlike so many of his countrymen, he has the education and experience to understand that Karimov’s policies are economically disastrous. Over dinner, we shared our frustration over this: Uzbekistan is not a naturally poor country. It is extremely well endowed with gas, gold, uranium, iron, coal and most rare minerals you can think of. It is historically fertile and could be so again once the government-dictated cotton monoculture is abandoned.
Uzbekistan’s plight is inflicted on it by appalling government. Umarov and I both believe it could recover surprisingly quickly once basic economic freedoms are established, of which the first must be to take the land from the state and give it to the peasant farmers. Over dinner we discussed other ideas, such as voucher privatisation schemes to enable the common people to benefit from Uzbekistan’s mineral wealth. I found Umarov attentive, interested and pro-active.
The outlawed Uzbek opposition has been fractured. There are genuine, historical differences between the Erk and Birlik parties, and those differences are vital to a democracy. But, until we achieve democracy, people need to work together against Karimov. The parties had moved to do that, to their great credit, but there was understandable resentment and suspicion from those who had suffered in opposition for years, towards a “Johnny Come Lately” like Sanjar Usmanov.
Well, he is certainly suffering now in his Tashkent cell. And, if Karimov is to be overthrown, in practice some reform-minded “insiders” are going to be needed to build the necessary national unity for reconstruction. That has to be faced. There are several prominent Uzbek opposition leaders, and Umarov now joins such figures as Mohammed Salih, Abdurahim Polat and others. One day let us hope the Uzbek people will freely choose between their politicians. For now, personal ambition needs to be subordinated to the need to end Karimov’s reign of terror.
The urgent need now is for all the opposition parties, including the Sunshine Coalition, to agree a platform of basic reform in the economy, the constitution, the police and judiciary, agriculture, education and many other areas. The broad lines of change need to be ready to roll out once Karimov goes. The most useful thing donors and foreign NGOs could do now would be to set up a programme outside Uzbekistan working with all parties to agree a plan of basic reform.
I found Umarov engaging and enthusiastic. I urged him to be cautious about returning to Uzbekistan, and was rather puzzled by his apparent confidence that he could pursue his political aims inside Uzbekistan without personal danger. Plainly he had good contacts with US official circles – since Karimov turned against the US, a pro-Western oligarch is a saleable commodity in Washington.
That Umarov was arrested at the time of the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to Tashkent is a sign of the strength and ugliness of the current Uzbek/Russian relationship. Umarov is being kept in solitary confinement. Nodira Khidatoyova of his party claims to have been told by an inside source that the Prokurator’s office have been instructed to destroy his mind through psychotropic drugs.
That is certainly feasible. There have been many examples of prisoners being forcibly injected, and Elena Urlaeva, another dissident I know, is currently undergoing such “treatment” in a psychiatric institution. Sanjar Umarov’s lawyer seems to provide some evidence for this. He found him naked, in solitary confinement, making repetitive movements and unable to communicate coherently.
The response of the international community to the brutal treatment of an opposition leader has been pathetic, as always with Uzbekistan. The UK, as EU Presidency, issued a pious statement hoping that “International norms of treatment would be respected”, when plainly they are not being.
Umarov is now being charged with “embezzlement”, and the UK hopes these charges will be “properly investigated”. How stupidly, utterly, inadequate! There is no “proper” investigation procedure in Uzbekistan, where 99% of those tried are convicted, and dissidents are framed literally every day, usually with narcotics or firearms offences. To pretend there is a shred of legitimacy to this treatment of Sanjar Umarov is a nonsense. Why is an alleged embezzler naked in solitary confinement?
If corruption is the real concern of the Uzbek authorities, Karimov and his daughter would be the first arrested. The international community, and the UK in particular, needs a much tougher response before Umarov dies in jail.
Craig Murray
Craig Murray
e-mail: craigjmurray@tiscali.co.uk
Homepage: http://www.craigmurray.co.uk
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Craig Murray’s new web server attacked
IMC’er | 02.10.2007 14:52 | Repression | Technology
Craig Murray’s web site is still not back online after a lengthly downtime caused by Fasthosts disconnecting the server it was hosted on at the behest of Shillings who are acting on behalf of Alisher Usmanov. The latest twist in this story is that a further delay in the return of his site has been caused by the server it was due to go live on being attacked:
“Murray found a new home for his website, when our main man Rich stepped into the breach, offering to host the site on his server, in defiance of oligarchical bluster. This new Murray site was due to launch on Monday, October 1; but lo and behold, Rich’s server was hit by the hacker firebomb on Sunday, September 30 – just hours before the Murray site was to go live.”
http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Back_From_the_Hack%2C_and_Once_More_Into_the_Breach/
The article that started the dispute between Craig Murray and Alisher Usmanov is now distrbuted far as wide on sites as diverse as the Atlantic Free Press [ http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2474/81/ ] and Slashdot [ http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=308417&cid=20751941 ].
Craig Murray has said that “If the man believes he was libelled then he should take me to court” [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/25/murray_usmanov_defiant/ ] but Shillings have made it clear that they “did not intend to sue Murray directly because they did not want to give him a platform to express his views” [ http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2177271,00.html ].
However the actions of Shillings have clearly resulted in far more people getting to see what Craig Murray has written about Alisher Usmanov as bloggers from across the political spectrum have reposted his article, including Paul Stott [ http://paulstott.typepad.com/i_intend_to_escape_and_co/2007/09/craig-murrays-a.html ], Lenin’s Tomb [ http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-happens-when-you-annoy-bumpkin.html ] and the Wombles [ http://www.wombles.org.uk/article2007091273.php ].
The case has also been covered by The Register [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/24/usmanov_vs_the_internet/ | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/25/murray_usmanov_defiant/ ] and Index on Censorship: Bloggers unite against intimidation [ http://www.indexonline.org/en/news/articles/2007/3/britain-bloggers-unite-against-threats.shtml ].
The editorial in the current issue of The Socialist Worker sums up why this case is of great importance:
Craig Murray - An attempt to silence
Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, was sacked by the British government for his stand against the torture and rights abuses by the Uzbek regime.
Since then he has been a tireless campaigner against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, exposing the hypocrisy of Western governments that preach about human rights while running torture camps like Guantanamo Bay.
In the course of his campaigning, Craig has seen off several attempts to use lawyers to gag him. The latest attack has led to his website www.craigmurray.org.uk being taken down by the company that hosts it, Fasthosts Internet Ltd.
The move came after Craig made allegations about Alisher Usmanov, the Uzbek businessman who has recently bought a part of Arsenal. Usmanov’s lawyers sent out letters to Fasthosts, forcing the company to take Craig’s site down.
Whatever the merits of Craig’s allegations against Usmanov, this move to crudely silence him represents nothing less than corporate censorship. Everyone in the anti-war movement should back Craig’s right to speak out.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13096
IMC’er
Homepage: http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/
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Additions
Fasthosts’ details
20.09.2007 23:29
If you want to pressure Fasthosts to restore Craigs website then you could contact them directly:
Fasthosts
Discovery House
154 Southgate Street
Gloucester
GL1 2EX
United Kingdom
Sales helpline
+44 (0)870 888 3600
Facsimile
0870 888 3760
(+44 1452 304242)
Email sales
sales@fasthosts.co.uk
Or you could just contact all their new customers directly and ask them to boycott the company - a simple google on @Fasthosts gives you enough information to do that.
Spineless Hosts
Craig Murray site closed by Fasthosts due to legal threats
20.09.2007 23:42
As many of our readers will know, this site [ LFCM: Casualty Monitor ] was first launched in support of Craig Murray and his election campaign in 2005.
We have just heard that the company hosting Craig Murray’s own web site have decided to close it after receiving threats from lawyers acting for Alisher Usmanov.
Fasthosts appear to have caved in under the pressure that has been applied to them following the posting of a number of articles on Usmanov. Craig has consistently maintained his position regarding the truth and validity of his comments regarding the Uzbek-born oligarch.
As detailed by Chicken Yoghurt, “the family of websites that Tim and Clive (whose site is also down) look after are also currently AWOL. So if you’re missing the online presences of Craig Murray, Bob Piper or Boris Johnson, now you know why they’ve gone.”
Casualty Monitor
Homepage: http://craigmurrayfriends.blogspot.com/2007/09/craig-murray-site-closed-by-fasthosts.html
God is an iron
21.09.2007 11:10
www.Schillings.co.uk has now been removed from decent society.
This is one of Craigs articles they helped hide.
September 14, 2007
Yet More Schillings Bollocks
On my article about Alisher Usmanov which so incensed his lawyers Schillings, let me ask this question. Has anybody seen an argument posted or published from any credible source to argue that what I say about Usmanov is untrue?
I ask the question because one of the edits to this log my webhost made at Schillings’ behest was to say that my claim was “regarded as false by many people”. I have altered that edit, because there is no justification for such a claim. I have yet to see evidence of anybody, not one solitary person, arguing that I am wrong about Usmanov, other than his lawyers. Who are these “Many people”, and why are they peculiarly silent?
I am very sympathetic to my webhost having to change things for Schillings, but not to the extent of altering things to become defamatory of me!!!
Posted by craig on September 14, 2007 3:14 PM in the category Uzbekistan
Danny
Craig’s offensive article from 2005
21.09.2007 15:37
Paradoxically the post which has caused the problems is one Craig made in 2005 which was (conveniently and serendipitously or maybe even with the help of Gypsy Petulengro, who helps out a lot round this office)copied at ;
So those anxious to see what those who would want us not to see what it was they don’t want us to see may see it, and maybe even copy it and distribute it around and about and up and down.
It is also entirely possible that it has already been copied elsewhere.
This is a case where singing from the same page of the same hymnal is essential.
Lord Patel
e-mail: zizania@gmail.com
Homepage: http://www.postmanpatel.blogspot.com
Comments
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Two more political bloggers pulled
21.09.2007 02:19
Time Ireland’s ‘Bloggerheads’ and another militant UK political blog have also been pulled having reposted Craig Murray’s claims.
x
Boris Johnson pulled, Arsenal United
21.09.2007 09:54
Interesting turn of events - Boris Johnston has had his website pulled for discussing this. So hopefully we can expect a full discussion in parliament under privelege.
Half the Arsenal fan sites were offline last night - however, the ones that remain up have started to publicise it. Politicos sometimes slag football for being a distraction but they are showing solidarity in the face of this attack. There doesn’t seem the slimmest chance of Usmanov being allowed to invest in any British sporting club. If only we could hold his other British investments accountable so easily.
http://arsenalfootballnews.blogspot.com/2007/09/craig-murrays-article-one-censored-by.html
http://arseblog.com/WP/2007/09/21/arsenal-usmanov-and-websites-arsecast-45/
Danny
Usmanov’s slimey lawyers
21.09.2007 12:35
UPDATE: Tim Ireland has pointed out that only him and Craig attacked Usmanov. Bob, Boris and the others were held on the same server. This actually serves to emphasis just how Usmanov’s slimey lawyers are using a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
The time has come for Usmanov and his team of lawyers who seem hellbent on bringing their profession into disrepute, to either sue over the truth of the allegations or to shut their mouths and stop using wealth as a means of combatting free speech. I call on the FA to investigate the fitness of Mr Usmanov to own a major football team. Sadly, there are other examples where they have shown no spine e.g. Manchester City!
It is imperative that newspapers committed to journalism investigate this matter as a matter of urgency. After all it is truth that matters and not the power of the wallet.
TurbulentCleric repost
Homepage: http://turbulentcleric.blogspot.com/2007/09/internet-freedom-in-question.html
The Article In Question
21.09.2007 19:27
Sanjar Umarov - Craig Murray’s recent meeting with him
Opposition Leader Tortured with Drugs
Craig Murray provides a background to the jailing and torturing of Sanjar Umarov.(see recent posts here about his arrest and treatment)
Today Sanjar Usmanov lies, unclothed, cold, drugged and beaten, on the bare floor of a dank solitary confinement cell in Tashkent.
Last month I had dinner with Sanjar Umarov at Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, just across from the White House. Sanjar leads Uzbekistan’s newest and best publicised opposition grouping, Sunshine Uzbekistan, which had largely taken over the Peasants and Entrepreneurs’ Party, itself a fairly recent addition to the opposition ranks.
There was a great deal of suspicion about Umarov from longer standing opposition figures. Umarov was an oligarch, from one of the leading regime families. He had made money in oil and cotton trading, both sectors which cannot be accessed without an inside political track. He had also been involved in the Uzdunrobita mobile telephone company, in which the major Uzbek partner was Gulnara Karimova, the President’s daughter. In March 2004 Karimova sold her shares in Uzdunrobita to a Russian company for 212 million dollars, a figure which places a much higher than realistic value on the company.
This transaction was an important stage in the peculiar business dealings between Russia and the Karimov family, which culminated in last November’s deal to allocate the bulk of Uzbekistan’s natural gas reserves to Gazprom. This deal was negotiated between Gulnara Karimova and Alisher Usmanov, the Uzbek born Russian oligarch who bought a substantial number of shares in Corus, the British steel company. Usmanov is also a Director of Gazprom responsible for their affairs in the former Soviet Union outside Russia.
Gulnara received a large cash payment - $88 million, according to my sources – on completion of the Gazprom deal, with further payments to come as gas is exported. Alisher Usmanov gave Putin a sweetener of 40% of the shares in Mapo Bank, an important Russian business bank with a close relationship to several blue chip western firms operating in Russia. The shares were made over to Piotr Jastrejebski, Putin’s private secretary who was a college friend of Alisher Usmanov and shared a flat with him.
This web is closely associated with Karimov’s succession strategy. He is desperate for Gulnara to succeed him, and the cash and Russian support is building up her power base. Some sort of Alisher Usmanov/Gulnara Karimova alliance is Karimov’s first choice to take over, in six or seven years time. This is the background to the diplomatic revolution of the last six months, with Karimov abandoning the US and turning back to the embrace of Mother Russia.
It is worth recalling that the Karimov regime had been aggressively anti-Russian, in terms of both propaganda, and of practical measures of linguistic discrimination. Approximately two million ethnic Russians have fled Uzbekistan since independence in 1991; about 400,000 are left.
This reorientation towards Russia went along with fierce anti-enterprise measures designed to stifle any entrepreneurial activity not under direct control of the Karimov family. This explained the physical closures of borders and bazaars, the crackdown on crash transactions and the channelling of all commercial activity through the state banks.
These developments not only brought still greater economic hardship to the poor, they created losers among the wealthy elite. Sanjar Umarov is an archetypal example of such “New losers”.
Umarov had studied business administration in Tennessee on a US government scholarship. His trading interests had widened from their Uzbek base. He has a home in Memphis, and a green card. His children are US citizens. Among the Uzbek elite, a class had come into existence of people who could do business with the West. Their business was now being cut off by Karimov.
It would be wrong to credit Sanjar Umarov with purely selfish motives. Unlike so many of his countrymen, he has the education and experience to understand that Karimov’s policies are economically disastrous. Over dinner, we shared our frustration over this: Uzbekistan is not a naturally poor country. It is extremely well endowed with gas, gold, uranium, iron, coal and most rare minerals you can think of. It is historically fertile and could be so again once the government-dictated cotton monoculture is abandoned.
Uzbekistan’s plight is inflicted on it by appalling government. Umarov and I both believe it could recover surprisingly quickly once basic economic freedoms are established, of which the first must be to take the land from the state and give it to the peasant farmers. Over dinner we discussed other ideas, such as voucher privatisation schemes to enable the common people to benefit from Uzbekistan’s mineral wealth. I found Umarov attentive, interested and pro-active.
The outlawed Uzbek opposition has been fractured. There are genuine, historical differences between the Erk and Birlik parties, and those differences are vital to a democracy. But, until we achieve democracy, people need to work together against Karimov. The parties had moved to do that, to their great credit, but there was understandable resentment and suspicion from those who had suffered in opposition for years, towards a “Johnny Come Lately” like Sanjar Usmanov.
Well, he is certainly suffering now in his Tashkent cell. And, if Karimov is to be overthrown, in practice some reform-minded “insiders” are going to be needed to build the necessary national unity for reconstruction. That has to be faced. There are several prominent Uzbek opposition leaders, and Umarov now joins such figures as Mohammed Salih, Abdurahim Polat and others. One day let us hope the Uzbek people will freely choose between their politicians. For now, personal ambition needs to be subordinated to the need to end Karimov’s reign of terror.
The urgent need now is for all the opposition parties, including the Sunshine Coalition, to agree a platform of basic reform in the economy, the constitution, the police and judiciary, agriculture, education and many other areas. The broad lines of change need to be ready to roll out once Karimov goes. The most useful thing donors and foreign NGOs could do now would be to set up a programme outside Uzbekistan working with all parties to agree a plan of basic reform.
I found Umarov engaging and enthusiastic. I urged him to be cautious about returning to Uzbekistan, and was rather puzzled by his apparent confidence that he could pursue his political aims inside Uzbekistan without personal danger. Plainly he had good contacts with US official circles – since Karimov turned against the US, a pro-Western oligarch is a saleable commodity in Washington.
That Umarov was arrested at the time of the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to Tashkent is a sign of the strength and ugliness of the current Uzbek/Russian relationship. Umarov is being kept in solitary confinement. Nodira Khidatoyova of his party claims to have been told by an inside source that the Prokurator’s office have been instructed to destroy his mind through psychotropic drugs.
That is certainly feasible. There have been many examples of prisoners being forcibly injected, and Elena Urlaeva, another dissident I know, is currently undergoing such “treatment” in a psychiatric institution. Sanjar Umarov’s lawyer seems to provide some evidence for this. He found him naked, in solitary confinement, making repetitive movements and unable to communicate coherently.
The response of the international community to the brutal treatment of an opposition leader has been pathetic, as always with Uzbekistan. The UK, as EU Presidency, issued a pious statement hoping that “International norms of treatment would be respected”, when plainly they are not being.
Umarov is now being charged with “embezzlement”, and the UK hopes these charges will be “properly investigated”. How stupidly, utterly, inadequate! There is no “proper” investigation procedure in Uzbekistan, where 99% of those tried are convicted, and dissidents are framed literally every day, usually with narcotics or firearms offences. To pretend there is a shred of legitimacy to this treatment of Sanjar Umarov is a nonsense. Why is an alleged embezzler naked in solitary confinement?
If corruption is the real concern of the Uzbek authorities, Karimov and his daughter would be the first arrested. The international community, and the UK in particular, needs a much tougher response before Umarov dies in jail.
Repost
Homepage: http://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2005/10/sanjar-umarov-craig-murrays-recent.html
He is Sparticus - him, over there
24.09.2007 19:41
After much prompting, the Register has bravely followed from the rear and mentioned Usmanov online.
Blogosphere shouts ‘I’m Spartacus’ in Usmanov-Murray case
http://www.theregister.com/2007/09/24/usmanov_vs_the_internet/
Bravely bold Sir Reg rode forth from Camelot.
He was not afraid to die, O brave Sir Reg !
He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Reg !
He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp,
Or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken;
To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away;
And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Reg !
His head smashed in and his heart cut out
And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
And his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off
And his pen-
Brave Sir Reg ran away.
Bravely ran away, away !
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Reg turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Reg !
He is packing it in and packing it up
And sneaking away and buggering up
And chickening out and pissing off home,
Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge…
Sir Reg
Craig Murray censored for attacking Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman
Censored | 07.09.2007 22:27
Craig Murray’s web site host has pulled an article on Alisher Usmanov with this reason: September 6, 2007 Usmanov Redux You may have noticed that the post regarding the less-than-salubrious nature of Alisher Usmanov has disappeared. This is at the instigation of Schillings, lawyers retained by Usmanov to brow-beat anyone who dares to show Alisher’s true colours. Pending legal advice which - as web host - I am unable to obtain prior to tomorrow, given Schilling’s deadline and in light of Godfrey v Demon Internet, the post may or may not reappear. In the meantime, it is always now somewhere on the web. If you know where to look, you’ll probably find it. Cheers Clive - webhost
The article is still available in the Google cache: 
http://google.com/search?q=cache:www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/09/alisher_usmanov.html The text follows: September 2, 2007 Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you. You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media becuase he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter: “Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.â€ﾝ Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke “Gorbachev”, a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue. Usmanov’s pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991 President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the “Pardon” because of his alliance with Usmanov’s mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on Gorbachev’s side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin standing on the tanks outside the White House. Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World’s most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the “privatisation” process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed. Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the country’s natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand. Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through Putin’s long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski. Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college. Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests outside Russia, Usmanov’s role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom’s bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states. Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has bought out - with the owners having no choice - the only independent national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window. All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist’s death, is set out in great detail here: http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that this is not particularly remarkable. Rape by the powerful is an everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand page 120. If anyone has more detail on the specific case involving Usmanov please add a comment. I reported back in 2002 or 2003 in an Ambassadorial top secret telegram to the Foreign Office that Usmanov was the most likely favoured successor of President Karimov as totalitarian leader of Uzbekistan. I also outlined the Gazprom deal (before it happened) and the present by Usmanov to Putin (though in Jastrzebski’s name) of half of Mapobank, a Russian commercial bank owned by Usmanov. I will never forget the priceless reply from our Embassy in Moscow. They said that they had never even heard of Alisher Usmanov, and that Jastrzebski was a jolly nice friend of the Ambassador who would never do anything crooked. Sadly, I expect the football authorities will be as purblind. Football now is about nothing but money, and even Arsenal supporters - as tight-knit and homespun a football community as any - can be heard saying they don’t care where the money comes from as long as they can compete with Chelsea. I fear that is very wrong. Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term.
Censored 
Homepage: http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/
Additions
Other copies of the article
07.09.2007 22:59
Alisher Usmanov
http://www.wombles.org.uk/article200704865.php http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.usa/browse_thread/thread/7e6c495f75362190 http://www.alisherusmanov.blogspot.com/ And an article about it: http://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2007/09/alisher-usmanov-arsenal-wannabe-owners.html
Censored
From
October 7, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2604053.ece
Arsenal tycoon Alisher Usmanov in diamond ‘fraud’ row
The Russian tycoon who has bought a £120m stake in Arsenal, the Premier League leaders, has been accused in court papers of “fraud” and “unjust enrichment” in a dispute over one of the world’s most lucrative diamond mines.
Alisher Usmanov has been named in documents filed by lawyers acting for a firm controlled by the Oppenheimer family, the billionaire dynasty behind the De Beers diamond corporation.
The court case, being brought in America, will add to the controversy surrounding the Russian tycoon, whose personal wealth is estimated at £5 billion. His 23% stake in Arsenal, acquired last month, makes him the club’s second biggest shareholder.
Last week he flew a party of journalists by private jet to the Moscow headquarters of his iron, steel, media and sports empire, and put them up at the five-star Kempinski hotel. He complained that he had been wrongly portrayed in Britain, saying: “I’m not a whipping boy, I expect to be treated with the same respect that I show other people.”
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His recent acquisition of the entire art collection of the late cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich, was seen by some as a statement of intent. He spent more than £20m on the 450 artworks, and announced that he would present them to the Russian state to keep the collection intact.
The possibility that he might launch a hostile takeover of the club has rekindled interest in Usmanov’s business past. Peter Hill-Wood, the Arsenal chairman, has said he opposed Usmanov’s involvement because it was not sufficiently clear how the businessman amassed his fortune in Russia and Uzbekistan.
The latest controversy concerns a court action in Denver, Colorado where hearings are due to start next month. At stake is the ownership of the so-called Grib Pipe, a fabulously rich diamond mine in the Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia.
The mining firm, Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC) in which De Beers owns a controlling stake, claims it is entitled to an interest in the Grib Pipe, which was discovered in 1996. The Grib Pipe is now said to be one of the largest diamond mines in the world, with a prospective value of £4.5 billion.
But in the Colorado court papers, ADC has alleged that Usmanov and other Russian interests “engaged in fraud in order to deceive” it over an agreement it says it had to take a 40% interest in the mine.
Rollo Head, a spokesman at the public relations firm Finsbury, which represents Usmanov, said the case was not against his client and he was not a defendant. “Mr Usmanov refutes and rejects any allegations of fraud or other wrongdoing in relation to the case against [a Russian oil firm],” he said.
An attorney close to the case said that the role of Usmanov was still at issue, because he was at the time deputy chairman of AGD, a Russian firm which is alleged in the court papers to have benefited from the alleged fraud.
According to the Colorado court papers, the de Beers firm says it spent more than $30m in a joint venture with AGD.
Usmanov is alleged in the documents to have personally represented AGD in talks with ADC. His former company is alleged in the court papers to have benefited from “unjust enrichment” because of the scheme.
De Beers, which coined the slogan “a diamond is forever”, controls more than 40% of the world’s diamond supply. Forbes magazine says Nicky Oppenheimer, its chairman, is the 158th richest person in the world with a fortune estimated at £2.5 billion. He spends his time between Johannesburg and England where the family have a farm which specialises in organic foods.
The case stems from a decision in the late 1990s by the government of Boris Yeltsin to strip the assets of Western diamond firms and hand them over to a clique close to the Kremlin.
Foreign firms were encouraged to develop exploration and mining concessions with a view to improving the local economy. They say few in Russia expected that anyone would strike diamonds in the remote area.
Many companies, including Rio Tinto and BHP, withdrew after finding little of value. But in 1996 ADC unexpectedly struck a rich vein.
It was shortly after this, the court papers allege, that Usmanov and others who were involved with a big Russian oil firm became party to a scheme to drive ADC out of Russia and take over the diamond project for themselves. The Russian firm in the joint venture was privatised and after this, ADC was denied access to develop the mine.
The De Beers firm claims it has lost the $30m investment “as well as over $400m in profits” which it expected to win as a result of its 40% stake in a joint venture. It claims it lost a further $800m in profits from other potential mines in the same area.
When the purchase of his initial 14.6% stake in Arsenal was announced last month, Usmanov instructed a firm of London lawyers to warn the media to be careful when reporting the fact that he had spent eight years in prison in Moscow in the late 1980s “for various offences”. These are said to include fraud, corruption and theft of state property.
The tycoon insists he was a political prisoner and his lawyers say he was “fully pardoned” after president Mikhail Gorbachev took office. He said last week that the charges had been cooked up by his enemies in the KGB.
However, parts of his account have been challenged by Craig Murray, the controversial former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, the country in which Usmanov was born.
Murray has made a series of allegations about Usmanov’s business conduct, including one which relates to his alleged financial ties to Gulnara Karimova, the glamorous daughter of Islam Karimov, the strongman president of Uzbekistan.
Usmanov’s lawyers wrote to the internet service provider that hosts Murray’s website demanding that it take down a posting detailing further allegations relating to Usmanov’s business and personal life.
At the press conference in Moscow last week Usmanov warned he would resist anyone who tried to push him out of Arsenal. “People talk about me as an Uzbek businessman involved