we oppose torture, vehemently

Watch Craig Murray giving evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

In October or November of 2002 I sent the FCO a telegram classified Top Secret and addressed specifically for the attention of the Secretary of State. I argued that to receive ... material from torture was:

• Illegal – Plainly it was a breach of UNCAT [UN Convention against Torture]
• Immoral – To support such despicable practices undermined our claims to civilisation
• Impractical – The material was designed to paint a false picture
I received no reply, so in January or February of 2003 I sent a further telegram repeating the same points...

I was summoned back to a meeting which was held in the FCO...At the start of the meeting Linda Duffield told me that Sir Michael Jay, Permanent Under Secretary, wished me to know that my telegrams were unwise and that these sensitive questions were best not discussed on paper.

In the meeting, Sir Michael Wood [Legal Advisor] told me that it was not illegal for us to obtain intelligence from torture, provided someone else did the torture. He added “I make no comment on the moral aspect” and appeared to me to be signalling disapproval.

Craig Murray, from his Evidence Statement to the JCHR

Yes, Jack Straw, knew that this was going on. Yes, he authorised the receipt of intelligence obtained from torture1. And yes, that is the same Jack Straw who in June 2003, while spinning the war and smearing the only British Ambassador brave enough to speak out against torture, actually launched a ‘Combatting Torture’ handbook to mark UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. I think I know how it goes:

Lesson 1: Pretend you don't know it's happening.
Lesson 2: Tell them you didn't ask them to do it, but you'll accept this lot, and if there happens to be any more, you won't turn that down either.
Lesson 3: Say thank you

Then make a speech a year later:

Since the UK Anti-Torture Initiative was launched in 1998, the FCO has intensified its efforts to combat torture wherever and whenever it occurs. We vehemently oppose torture as a matter of fundamental principle. Torture is absolutely prohibited in international law and is to be condemned.

Guess who?

It turns out that behind Jack Straw and the rest of his disreputable bunch, we too have legal advisors. They are distantly related to Judge Bybee, and are prepared to churn out reams of rubbish in order to satisfy political masters. 'This isn't, technically speaking, torture sir. Or rather, whether it is or not is immaterial, as long as we do not get our own hands dirty. We vehemently oppose torture because it bloodies our ties. But we can reap its fruits, from a legal point of view'.

And yes, as well as the Ministers and the legal advisors and Linda Duffield et al, the rest of the Ambassadors are a spineless and amoral bunch. The JCHR was puzzled: 'Why do you think', asked Edward Timpson of Murray, 'that no-one else has come forward and made these same allegations?'

Well why do you think, Timpson? Murray was dragged through the press, smeared and accused of gross misconduct, then kicked out of the Foreign Office - all for pointing out that a policy sanctioned from on high was probably illegal. Unless you have a spine, you probably don't put yourself forward for that. 'Rather you than me', as one of his colleague ambassadors apparently remarked.

• 1. In this article, Murray states that "I was called back [from Tashkent to London] to a meeting to discuss [the complaint] in March 2003 and I was told that Jack Straw had considered the issue ... specifically and had decided it [the use of the information] should continue." Murray also points out, in this blog post, that in its annual human rights report of 2008, the FCO itself makes a public admission of its use of intelligence from torture: 'The use of intelligence possibly derived through torture presents a very real dilemma, given our unreserved condemnation of torture and our efforts to eradicate it. Where there is intelligence that bears on threats to life, we cannot reject it out of hand' (my emph).