Foreign Office legal threat to Scot over abuse claims

Published on 12/07/2006 00:40

THE Foreign Office is threatening to sue a former ambassador for publishing documents he says support allegations about British complicity with human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.

Government lawyers have told Craig Murray to remove the documents from his website as they infringe Crown copyright. They have warned they will seek a High Court injunction unless Mr Murray also gives an undertaking by 4pm tomorrow that he will not reproduce the documents.

But Mr Murray, a Scot who quit his post in Uzbekistan in 2004, has refused to remove the documents, most of which he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and Data Protection Act. He placed them on his website last Tuesday to corroborate claims in his book, Murder In Samarkand, from which they were deleted on Foreign Office orders.

On Friday, Gareth Buttrill wrote to him on behalf of the Treasury Solicitors: "As you do not have permission or a licence to reproduce the documents, we consider that Crown copyright has been infringed."

Mr Murray said he would he would not remove the documents until he had received legal advice.

He added: "The documents in question are the supporting evidence for my book. The government continues to claim my story is untrue."