Monday, January 12, 2009 

The Catholic Orangemen of Togo.

Quoting Craig Murray:

Lawyers Schillings, acting on behalf of mercenary commander Tim Spicer, persuaded my publisher to pull out of publishing my new book, The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known. Tim Spicer has made millions from the war in Iraq, and the UK has become notorious for the ability of the rich to close down criticism because of the massive costs - often hundreds of thousands of pounds - of defending a legal action.

There is access to the courts in big libel cases only for the ultra-rich. So much so that just a simple letter like this
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/Schillings.pdf
can kill a book. This process is known in the trade as "Chilling". Schillings are the acknowledged leaders in chilling.

But the law was formulated in an age when a limited number of printing presses were the only means of mass communication. Not only does this not apply in the digital age, but by using the "Streisland effect" we can make sure that any attempt at "Chilling" results in ten times more people actually reading the book. Eventually this will discourage clients from using firms like Schillings, and hopefully put the leeches of repression out of business.

So as a lesson to Schillings and their potential clients, here is The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known. I am making it available across the internet, absolutely free to read. You can find it here:
http://www.septicisle.info/murraytogo.zip (PDF files)

Let me be clear: there is no libel in this book - it is all true and based on my own eye-witness account. It contains not libel, but rather truth some people wish to hide.

It is going online in the next 24 hours in over thirty jurisdictions - Schillings will have their work cut out trying to get all those taken down, and it would make a dent even in Spicer's bank balance to try.

So please read it, pass it around, copy it and post it to your site. You will be striking a blow for freedom, and you will ultimately contribute to making libel lawyers poorer.

If you want a hard copy, I have self-published and had some privately printed. You can buy it here.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/buy_the_catholi.html

I should be most happy if people wished to buy the book - you can widen the effect by giving it as a present! My last book, Murder in Samarkand was a non-fiction bestseller, so Schillings have cost me a lot of money. It will be more than worth it if we can get the truth out more widely, and strike a blow against the libel laws.

The blurb reads:

Craig Murray's adventures in Africa from 1997 to 2001 are a rolliciking good read. He exposes for the first time the full truth about the "Arms to Africa" affair which was the first major scandal of the Blair Years. He lays bare the sordid facts about British mercenary involvement in Africa and its motives. This is at heart an extraordinary account of Craig Murray's work in negotiating peace with the murderous rebels of Sierra Leone, and in acting as the midwife of Ghanaian democracy. Clearly his efforts were not only difficult but at times very dangerous indeed. Yet the story is told with great humour. Not only do we meet Charles Taylor, Olusegun Obasanjo, Jerry Rawlings and Foday Sankoh, but there are unexpected encounters with others including Roger Moore, Jamie Theakston and Bobby Charlton! Above all this book is about Africa. Craig Murray eschews the banal remedies of the left and right to share with us the deep knowledge and understanding that comes over 30 years working in or with Africa. Gems of wisdom and observation scatter the book, as does a deep sense of moral outrage at the consequences of centuries of European involvement: even though he explains that much of it was well-intentioned but disastrous.

And already Murray's book is making waves due its stinging criticism of the transformation of the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which has also been the focus of much attention in Private Eye of late:

Lady Amos, who was international development secretary and leader of the Lords in Tony Blair's government, has taken up a directorship with an African private equity firm, three months after it received over £15m from a Whitehall agency wholly owned by her former department.

The timing of Amos's appointment was described as "a coincidence" by the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC), which approved the cash – amounting to nearly 30% of the funds raised by Travant Capital Partners, based in Nigeria.

Craig Murray, the UK's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, attacks the appointment in a new book published this week. He says: "It says everything about New Labour that CDC, which ... used to run agricultural projects to benefit the rural poor, was rebranded ... with a new remit to provide most of its funds to the financial services industry. It says even more about New Labour's lack of the understanding of fundamental personal ethics, of their embrace of greed, that they see no reason why one of their former senior ministers should not move to benefit personally from the DFID [Department for International Development] money – even if through a 100% owned satellite – thus invested."


Having not had much time to look at it until now despite Craig e-mailing it me around a month ago, just reading the first couple of pages immediately hooks you in, Murray's engaging prose and casual but endearing style an absolute treat that's well worth indulging. Sticking one up Schillings and help with the distribution, however slight, is the very least I could do.

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Thursday, October 02, 2008 

Censorship and freedom of speech.

Mirror of Craig Murray's post involving Tim Spicer, which his publishers are unwilling to publish due to legal threats from our old friends Schillings:

October 1, 2008

Censorship and Freedom of Speech

This is the key section from my new book which the publisher is unwilling to publish due to legal threats from Schillings libel lawyers, acting on behalf of the mercenary commander Tim Spicer:

"Peter Penfold was back in the UK. He was interviewed separately. Both Penfold and Spicer were interviewed under caution, as suspects for having broken the arms embargo.

Then, suddenly, Tony Blair intervened. On 11 May 1998, without consulting the FCO, he gave a statement to journalists. Penfold, Blair declared, was "a hero". A dictatorship had been successfully overthrown and democracy restored. Penfold had "Done a superb job in trying to deal with the consequences of the military coup." All this stuff about Security Council Resolutions and sanctions was "an overblown hoo-ha".

I believe this episode is extremely important. In 1998 the country was still starry-eyed about Blair, but with the benefit of hindsight, this intervention points the way towards the disasters of his later years in office. It is extraordinarily wrong for a Prime Minister to declare that a man is a hero, when Customs had questioned him two days earlier under caution over the very matter the Prime Minister is praising. It shows Blair's belief that his judgement stood above the law of the land, something that was to occur again on a much bigger scale when he halted the Serious Fraud Office investigation into British Aerospace's foreign bribes. But of course Blair's contempt for UN security council resolutions on the arms embargo, and the belief that installing democracy by invasion could trump the trivia of international law, prefigures precisely the disaster of Iraq. As with Iraq, Blair was also conveniently ignoring the fact that Sierra Leone was left a mess, with Kabbah in charge of little more than Freetown.

In the FCO we were astonished by Blair's intervention, and deeply puzzled. Where had it come from? It differed completely from Robin Cook's views. Who was drafting this stuff for Blair to the effect that the UN and the law were unimportant? For most of us, this was the very first indication we had of how deep a hold neo-con thinking and military interests had on the Blair circle. It was also my first encounter with the phenomenon of foreign policy being dictated by Alistair Campbell, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary, The military lobby, of course, was working hard to defend Spicer, one of their own.

A few days later Customs and Excise concluded their investigations. A thick dossier, including documentation from the FCO, from the raid on Sandline's offices, and from elsewhere, was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. The Customs and Excise team who had interviewed us told me that the recommendation was that both Spicer and Penfold be prosecuted for breach of the embargo. The dossier was returned to Customs and Excise from the Crown Prosecution Service the very same day it was sent. It was marked, in effect, for no further action. There would be no prosecution. A customs officer told me bitterly that, given the time between the dossier leaving their offices and the time it was returned, allowing time for both deliveries, it could not have been in the CPS more than half an hour. It was a thick dossier. They could not even have read it before turning it down.

I felt sick to my stomach at the decision not to prosecute Spicer and Penfold. So were the customs officers investigating the case; at least two of them called me to commiserate. They had believed they had put together an extremely strong case, and they told me that their submission to the Crown Prosecution Service said so.

The decision not to prosecute in the Sandline case was the first major instance of the corruption of the legal process that was to be a hallmark of the Blair years. Customs and Excise were stunned by it. There is no doubt whatsoever that Spicer and Penfold had worked together to ship weapons to Sierra Leone in breach of UK law. Security Council 1132 had been given effect in British law by an Order in Council. I had never found in the least credible their assertions that they did not know about it. I had personally told Spicer that it would be illegal to ship arms to Sierra Leone, to any side in the conflict. Penfold's claim never to have seen an absolutely key Security Council Resolution about a country to which he was High Commissioner is truly extraordinary.

But even if they did not know, ignorance of the law is famously no defence in England. Who knows what a jury would have made of this sorry tale of greed, hired killers and blood diamonds. But I have no doubt at all - and more importantly nor did the customs officers investigating the case - that there was enough there for a viable prosecution.

The head of the Crown Prosecution Service when it decided not to prosecute was Barbara Mills. Barbara Mills is a very well-connected woman in New Labour circles. She is married to John Mills, a former Labour councillor in Camden. That makes her sister-in-law to Tessa Jowell, the New Labour cabinet minister with a penchant for taking out repeated mortgages on her home, and then paying them off with cash widely alleged to have come from Silvio Berlusconi, the friend and business colleague of her husband David Mills, who according to a BBC documentary by the estimable John Sweeney has created offshore companies for known Camorra and Mafia interests. Tessa Jowell and David Mills were also both Camden Labour Councillors, and are close to Tony Blair. Blair is also a great friend of Berlusconi, despite the numerous criminal allegations against Berlusconi and his long history of political alliances with open fascists. Just to complete the cosy New Labour picture, another brother-in-law of Barbara Mills and Tessa Jowell is Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian.

Did any of those relationships of Barbara Mills, the Director of Public Prosecutions, affect the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to proceed with the case, and to take that decision in less time than it would have taken them to read the dossier Customs and Excise sent them?

Barbara Mills was to resign as Director of Public Prosecutions later that year after being personally criticised in his judgement by a High Court judge who ruled against the Crown Prosecution Service for continually failing to prosecute over deaths in police custody. That has not stopped the extremely well connected Dame Barbara from being appointed to a string of highly paid public positions since then."

It is infuriating that, Maxwell-style, Spicer (who has made millions from the war in Iraq) is using the prohibitive costs of defending a libel case to intimidate my publisher. The result is that important information I received at first hand, and an account of events to which I am eye-witness, is being repressed, as is an important independent critique of early Blair foreign policy.

I am not currently confident the book will get published at all - I am not prepared to put out anodyne pap, which hides the truth, under my name.

I am not currently confident the book will get published at all - I am not prepared to put out anodyne pap, which hides the truth, under my name.

Cryptome has also posted the original Schillings threat in PDF form, mirrored here.

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Saturday, July 12, 2008 

Schillings after Murray again and weekend round-up.

The freedom of speech denying shysters at Schillings are once again threatening Craig Murray, this time before he's even published anything. Unity has the letter from the scumbags, reproduced here in full:

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh) Limited
7 Albany Street
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH13UG

BY POST AND FAX: XXXX XXX XXXX
OurRef: SMS/JXR/ww/A131/3
ON THE RECORD
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
08 July 2008

Dear Sirs

The Road to Samarkand - Craig Murray

We represent Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer OBE, C.E.O. of Aegis Defence Services Limited (”Aegis”).

We are instructed to write to you with regard to ‘THE ROAD TO SAMARKAND- INTRIGUE, CORRUPTION AND DIRTY DIPLOMACY’ (”the Book”) written by Craig Murray and due to be published in September 2008 by you (http://www.rbooks.co.uk/search results.aspx) to be sold in England and Wales by Random House Sales Department.

We have reason to believe that the Book may contain serious, untrue and damaging defamatory allegations about our client.

Please confirm by return whether the Book is due to be published in England and Wales in September 2008 and if so, the exact date. Please also confirm whether the Book is due to be published in any other jurisdiction, setting out each jurisdiction, together with the publication date and publisher concerned in each case.

Importantly, we require you to confirm by return whether or not the Book contains any reference to our client, and if so, we require you to set out in full each and every reference to our client in its entirety to give our client the opportunity to take legal advice and to respond to any allegations in good time prior to publication.

Any widespread publication of the Book containing defamatory allegations concerning our client would be deeply damaging to our client’s personal and professional reputations and would cause him profound distress and anxiety. We remind you that you would be responsible for that damage and any subsequent republication of the allegations. We also put you on notice that you will be liable for any special damage or loss suffered by our client as a result of the Book and we reserve all our client’s rights in this regard.

We note from your website http://www.mainstreampublishing.com/news_current.html that Mr Murray is due to speak about the Book at a ‘Mainstream author event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival’ entitled ‘Lived Lives’ on 12th August 2008 at 4.30pm in the RBS Main Theatre, Edinburgh. We hereby put both you and Mr Murray on notice that all our client’s rights are reserved in relation to any defamatory comments or publications made by you or Mr Murray in relation to that event.

Please immediately take into your possession all drafts of the Book pre-publication, all notes, emails, correspondence, memos, images and other documents relevant to the publication of this Book, and preserve them safely pending the outcome of this dispute. They will need to be disclosed in due course if litigation has to be commenced. Also, you will need to disclose the financial arrangements for the sale and licence of the Book to other publications.

In the circumstances, we require that you confirm immediately that you agree to undertake on behalf of Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh) Limited not to publish any libels regarding our client in any editions of the Book or at all.

We require the above undertaking by 4pm on Friday 11h July 2008, failing which we will have no option but to advise our client with regard to making applications to the High Court for an injunction to restrain publication and/or for pre-action disclosure. You are on notice that we will seek to recover the costs of any necessary applications from you.

We await your response by return. In the meantime all our client’s rights are reserved, including the right to issue proceedings against you without further notice.
Yours faithfully

SCHILLINGS
cc. Craig Murray Esq.


As Murray himself says:

Schillings are a firm of libel lawyers dedicated to prevent the truth from being known about some deeply unlovely people. They managed temporarily to close down this blog (and several others) to keep information quiet about the criminal record of Alisher Usmanov. Now they are attempting to block the publication of my new book in the interests of mercenary commander Tim Spicer, one of those who has made a fortune from the Iraq War. It is sad but perhaps predictable that private profits from the illegal Iraq war, in which hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died, are providing the funding to try to silence my book.

Libel law in the UK is a remarkable thing - Schillings can go for an injunction when I haven't published anything about Spicer yet and they haven't seen what I intend to publish. People might conclude that Spicer has something to hide. You will see that they also are attempting to censor not only the book, but what I say at the Edinburgh Book Festival on 12 August. I can assure you that they will find it impossible to affect what I say about Spicer at that event.


Craig provides more information about Spicer and the mercenary outfit, sorry, I mean private security group, Aegis, that he is CEO of here, here and here. Aegis have used their legal talons before to shut down the website of a disaffected former contractor who had embarrassed the firm by hosting "trophy videos" of Aegis mercenaries, sorry, employees, shooting at Iraqi vehicles for no apparent reason. Having provided defence for a ghastly oligarch with a criminal record and with other serious allegations made against him, Schillings are now providing cover for those who have profited so handsomely from the Iraq war, lest anyone say anything unhelpful about their brilliant role in bringing democracy to that benighted country. It's difficult to give lawyers a worse name, but Schillings seem to be trying to up the ante considerably.

Elsewhere Harry's Place are also facing legal action from other unpleasant individuals, but then, who cares about Harry's Place?

Other things worth reading/perusing today:

Anthony Barnett: a new poll shows less than 10% of Labour members support 42 days

Erwin James interviews four young men in a YOI, and their stories are hardly typical of the evil yobs that the tabloids like to imagine are those who perpetuate knife crime

The always good value Marina Hyde on Abu Qatada

Three quite wonderful articles/posts by Rachel North

Oh, and today is this blog's third birthday, like you care. It feels more like twenty.

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Tuesday, November 20, 2007 

The clearing of Undercover Mosque and a certain law firm's involvement.

As widely predicted, Channel 4's Undercover Mosque programme was cleared by Ofcom of any breaches of the broadcasting code (PDF), including West Midlands Police's complaint that the editing of the programme had "completely distorted" what the speakers featured had said. Unlike some of the unfair criticism thrown at the police which claimed they had no evidence whatsoever on which to make such allegations, the Ofcom report features five examples (page 12) which the police gave which they said proved that the speakers' lectures had been misquoted. In the event, all are rather flimsy, and seem to more than give the benefit of the doubt to those featured whom in some cases were using bloodcurdling rhetoric which the police never disputed.

The 4th sequence the police included in their evidence that those featured had their views distorted is especially laughable, referring to Abdul Basit, who said that "the hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders", talking of how a tabloid newspaper had praised a Muslim soldier who died with the headline "Hero of Islam". WMP's complaint wasn't that Basit hadn't said exactly that; it was that the comment had come from a far longer speech. It's hard not to be sympathetic towards Channel 4's dismissive comment on the WMP's complaint that the force had a "fundamental misunderstanding of the editing process" and betrayed "staggering naivety" about television production in general.

If the police felt they had to get involved, and on the basis of the evidence they produced their reasons for doing so were far from open and shut, the very last thing they ought to have done is go about it in the way they did, going straight to the media with what they were about to do rather than even bothering to consult Channel 4 and seek an explanation from them. It's become something of a practice for the police to run to the newspapers whenever they've got what they think is a "hot story", and especially considering their past record in doing just that in terrorism cases, you can't help but feel that this time round it's badly backfired. While the police have every right to complain about what they personally felt was a misleading and distorted documentary, the message sent by their actions was that those who were caught making highly offensive and extreme statements in places of worship were at best being defended by the police, with at worst giving the impression that they were above the law. In my view, the Crown Prosecution Service came to the right conclusion that no one should have been prosecuted for the views expressed in the programme; however condemnable and despicable the speeches were, they were not inciting racial hatred or violence, although in the case of "take that homosexual and throw him off the mountain" they came close. By their joint actions with the police however the distinct impression will have been sent that Channel 4 were the ones who should have been under the microscope.

David Davis goes a little over the top in suggesting that the police's actions risked "impeding freedom of speech", but it certainly merits asking the West Midlands police why they broadened their initial investigation from that of what was said on the programme onto those who made it. Some will and have cried political correctness, but considering that the CPS did consider whether any laws had been breached that hardly stands up to scrutiny. The most damage the police attitude will have done however is to the cause of moderates within the Muslim community: we need those who are spreading and disseminating such views in mosques to be exposed and shown up for how unrepresentative they are, and this is exactly what Undercover Mosque did. We also need to learn how to deal with such views when they are expressed in order to fight back against them; for the police to in effect accuse Channel 4 of being the ones in the wrong will have only have given those expressing such virulent viewpoints the feeling of impunity.

The most unexpected but revealing fact is left until near the end of the Ofcom bulletin (page 44). As well as the police complaining, the "Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia" also authorised a legal firm to moan for them. Just who were the fine upstanding body of lawyers who took the money off those who stand in charge of a system which sentences a rape victim to 200 lashes and six months imprisonment? You've got it, Schillings. This would be the same Schillings who last week co-signed a letter to the Grauniad calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the lawyers in Pakistan caught up in Musharraf's declaration of emergency purge, rights which those in the same position in Saudi Arabia have never had. Strangely, the cases involving the tyrants of Saudi Arabia and lying oligarchs like Alisher Usmanov aren't featured on Schillings' client press releases page, although it is shouting about its successful defense of footballer Anton Ferdinand.

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Monday, November 19, 2007 

Usmanov-watch: Blanket denials from a man with a closet full of skeletons.

At long last, someone's finally managed to ask Alisher Usmanov pertinent questions about his relationship with Islam Karimov, dictator of Uzbekistan and Gafur Rakhimov, the Uzbek mafia boss. The Grauniad's actual profile and article are typically tame, although they expose the lie that Usmanov was pardoned by Gorbachev, but it's the unexpurgated answers that Usmanov bizarrely demanded be published in full which say a lot more than his bland denials seem to on first glance:

What can you tell us about your relationship with President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and his daughter, Gulnora Karimova?

There isn't any relationship between me and President Karimov and any members of his family.

Yeah, sure. Usmanov's pardon, arranged by the Uzbek supreme court, was nothing whatsoever to do with Karimov.


Mr Wise mentioned one Gafur Rakhimov. You are on record as saying that you have known Mr Rakhimov for many years. Is this correct? What can you tell us about your relationship with Mr Rakhimov, and what can you say about these allegations against him?

As I've explained previously, I only knew him since he was a neighbour of my parents. I have never had, nor do I have any business dealings with him.

How very convenient! As Craig Murray points out, this is the equivalent of saying that he only knew Mr Capone because he lived next door to him.

In December 1998, Lord Owen told the Observer newspaper that you had informed him that your criminal convictions were being annulled by Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan. What can you tell us about your relationship with President Karimov?

I have answered this already.

Do you accept that President Karimov was involved in the annulment of your criminal convictions? If so, what part did he play?

My criminal convictions were not annulled, but reconsidered by the Supreme Court, during which the evidence was found proving that the case was a trumped-up one.

The decision on my complete discharge was taken by the Supreme Court, not by the President. I have no relationship with President Karimov, and this is the second time I have to answer the question.

By the way, the verdict was appealed in the Supreme Court in post soviet Uzbekistan by two other persons, who were convicted in the case. Being a citizen of another country I had no chance to do it. People spinning this rubbish prefer to ignore certain facts that don't fit in their theories.


Usmanov, despite being advised by one of the top libel firms and another top PR company doesn't seem to have learned that when you're in a hole you're meant to stop digging.

There have been several reports in the Russian media detailing your appearances at social events organised by President Karimov's daughter, Gulnora Karimova, at the invitation of Ms Karimova. At least one of these reports has appeared in a newspaper that you own. (Kommersant, November 20 2006). It has also been widely reported that Ms Karimova played a role in assisting Gazprom with its gas export deal, by which Gazprom secured the rights to exploit Uzbekistan's gas reserves. What can you tell us about your friendship with Ms Karimova?

I have only met Ms Karimova during official events organised by the Uzbekistan embassy and by the Cultural Fund of Uzbekistan in Moscow.

Is it correct that Ms Karimova also played a role in assisting Gazprom with its gas export deal?


I know nothing about this. I believe that all the deals by Gazprom are made in conformity with a common business practice, like in any public company.

Did you work in conjunction with Ms Karimova in securing the deal?

The nature of my limited acquaintance with Ms Karimova has already been clarified. I have never had any business dealings with her. Sincerely, I do not understand what makes you believe any claims to the contrary, especially coming from a person who hasn't presented nor does he have any evidence to support his position. I have no relationship, business or political alliances with Ms Karimova.


There's plenty here for the investigating hacks to dig into with a view to proving that Usmanov is lying. Expect plenty to be doing so right now.

Nothing that Usmanov has said here will dispel the circling rumours that he and Schillings attempted to stop from even being heard. Indeed, he might well have inadvertently given himself more than enough rope to hang himself with. His blanket denials of the many claims of Craig Murray and others rightly warrant further investigation; his attempt to be straight only furthers the belief that he has plenty to hide, and his previous charm offensives and playing of the victim have done nothing to halt the questions surrounding his background. Further legal flurries seem likely once the truth begins to seep out.

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Monday, October 15, 2007 

Usmanov-watch: Playing the victim.

From one revolting end of the Murdoch empire to another, the Alisher Usmanov charm offensive was back on yesterday in one of the most sycophantic, one-sided articles to appear in a so-called newspaper of record. Congratulations have to go to
It was partly in an attempt to curb claims of a shady past that he invited me to his Moscow mansion and agreed to talk for the first time about the circumstances that led to his being imprisoned in 1980. Usmanov runs his empire from the headquarters of Metal-loinvest, his main company, in a lavish building in central Moscow fitted with Italian marble and heavy chandeliers. From there I was driven 30 miles along Rublovka, a road that cuts through a forest of firs to a “billionaires’ row” where Usmanov has a 30-acre estate beside the Moscow river. A 16ft-high metal fence encircles the property.

Usmanov, who never leaves home without a retinue of bodyguards armed with machine-guns, was working in a large, single-storey wooden villa which he has built as a private office next to his palatial house.

Casually dressed in a Lacoste polo shirt, tracksuit bottoms and leather slippers, he was sitting in an armchair, advising a friend on the telephone on how best to clinch a £1m deal. In front of him was a small table and a bell with which to summon staff.

In the next room, his personal adviser on equities was checking the latest share prices on a 30in computer screen.

Sipping tea after his phone call, Usmanov studied the screen with the analyst as they discussed whether to sell a large holding in a Russian bank. A butler delivered frequent messages or passed on one of several mobile phones on which the tycoon fielded further calls.


If you aren't throwing up already having read just that extract, then both Tim and Craig himself
thoroughly fisk and destroy this partial, despicably craven meeting of convenience. Craig incidentally, despite never being served with anything approaching a writ, is described thusly:

Usmanov rejected the charges and threatened to sue Murray “if he can first prove that he is completely sane”.

Usmanov likes playing the victim, that's for sure. A venal bully with the full weight of his fortune and power behind him picking on those who dare to call him on his dubious past, and he's the one who's been wronged.

“I was a victim and when I came out I realised I had one last chance to make a success of my life. I won’t fall so low as to fight those who want to blacken my name. Let their slurs weigh on their conscience. Mine is clean.”

No, he's more than happy to slur his accusers by questioning their sanity while his shysters at Schillings and PR associates as Finsbury PR do the real leg-work. It may be down to last week's Usmanov story in the Sunset Times, about his connections with, err, corruption and fraud, allegations which curiously go unnoted in the interview that this piece of arslikhan inspired, but that doesn't acquit the ST. This is simply lazy, callow journalism from a newspaper that once exposed the Thalidomide scandal. How far away those days seem.

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Sunday, October 07, 2007 

Usmanov-watch: Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Alisher Usmanov is a man without a blemish on his character. His stay in prison in Uzbekistan during the 80s was down to a vendetta being cooked up against him by the KGB. He only has the best of intentions in trying to gain control of Arsenal, and unlike the other Russian oligarchs, he made his money entirely legitimately.

That at least is what Usmanov and his collective of cunts at Schillings have been trying to get across to the media, with the pain of potential litigation if they deviate from their personally prepared script.

It's a great shame then that this view of Usmanov is somewhat shattered by a report in today's Sunday Times:

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 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.

...

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.


We should be careful of course. Usmanov might be entirely innocent of these allegations. It does however somewhat shatter Usmanov's argument that his money was made entirely legitimately and without any help from the Kremlin. It's also just a coincidence that Usmanov was jailed in the 80s on fraud and theft charges, and here he is, just after he's tried to charm the media into believing it was all a conspiracy against him, being accused of err, fraud and "unjust enrichment", which I'm sure you'll agree is completely different to stealing. Usmanov claims his parents did not bring him up as a "a gangster and a racketeer", two of the charges Murray made against him, and he could well be telling the truth. He seems more than capable of developing those qualities later in life.

The Times' article also informs us of the PR firm that Usmanov has seemingly hired to transform his image from an obese, toad-like megalomaniac to that of a kindly, slighted benefactor. Finsbury Limited, Usmanov's choice, are just as boastful of their prowess as Schillings are. Finsbury count some of the following delightful companies as clients:

British Sky Broadcasting Plc
Daily Mail and General Trust plc
Northern Rock plc

Reed Elsevier PLC (responsible for the arms fairs held in London's Docklands every year)
Rio Tinto plc

Royal Dutch Shell plc
Equitable Life

You get the feeling that even they are going to have their work cut out spinning for this ghastly, mendacious bully.

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Saturday, October 06, 2007 

Usmanov and Schillings watch: Indymedia latest to be threatened.

Seems like Usmanov's legal shysters, Schillings' tactics have been to let the dust settle slightly after the uproar over the taking down of Craig Murray/Bloggerheads etc, then to continue exactly as before.

UK Indymedia are the latest to be threatened:

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.

This only makes Usmanov's charm offensive this week, involving the flying via private jet of at least 9 British journalists to his offices in Moscow, then putting them up in a five star hotel all the more shallow. He says he's not a vindictive man and that some of Murray's allegations are beneath his dignity to respond to, yet his lackey of legal brown-nosing sycophants are still trying to remove all mentions and republishing of Murray's original post, while still failing to respond either to Murray's request for them to sue him or to even explain how inaccurate his allegations are, apart from their completely untrue argument that Usmanov was pardoned by Gorbachev.

If either Schillings or Usmanov think we're going to continue to take their attempts to silence all criticism of this deeply unpleasant man lying down, then they've got another thing coming.

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007 

Usmanov-watch: Charm offensive by a charmless man.

There's a well-known trick in the world of PR that's meant to help journalists feel more sympathetic towards their client. If the client is suitably rich, they suggest that they stay wherever it is they live, and let the interviewers/hacks come to them, in an as luxurious fashion as possible.

Alisher Usmanov, no doubt paying not just for the services of Schillings, his legion of lackeying legal freedom of speech suppressing cunts, but also for the work of one of the most expensive PR firms, decided to take just this approach. It seems that a representative from almost all of the broadsheets' sports teams (Times) (Telegraph) (Guardian) (FT) was requested, and subsequently flown by private jet to see Usmanov in Moscow in the offices of his metals company. No expense was presumably spared, and inevitably none of the journalists who subsequently filed a piece so much as dared to question him further about Craig Murray's initial allegations, accepting his responses at face value.

Usmanov for example claims that he has next to no real links with Uzbekistan:
"I don't live in Uzbekistan. I am not even a citizen of Uzbekistan. I only visit the graves of my parents once a year."

Quite understandably, he doesn't mention his very real friendship with Islom Karimov, the current Uzbek dictator, or indeed that Gazprom, for whom Usmanov is the Gazprom Investholdings chairman, has control of the Uzbek natural gas reserves.

"Life is a sequence of events we cannot always control. Sometimes we are helpless against the circumstances life presents. Most obviously it manifested in the system we all lived under when the country was ruled by the Communist party."

As, after all, things are far different in Uzbekistan now than they were during Soviet times. I mean they don't still have the same president or anything.... Oh.

The most hilarious thing in all these reports is Usmanov's claim that it is both beneath his dignity to respond to all the allegations, and that he isn't a vindictive man. His hiring of Schillings, who have been sending out chilling legal threats to anyone who dared to link to Murray's original post, was purely the action of someone who wanted the truth to be known! It's all been a big misunderstanding: he just didn't want silly mistakes to be made. How wrong and mean we've all been!

I am dealing with the British ambassador to Moscow to run some huge cultural events. We are bringing great artists to exhibit in Russian museums. Why not ask him about the secret intelligence he has received on me?

Yeah, that's a great idea Alisher. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to share that "secret" intelligence with us. In any case, if it's the same intelligence that Murray received, as it doubtless is, he'll already know the truth but will have to bite his lip.

Decrying the “prejudice material” written about him, Mr Usmanov says he is tiring of firing off various law suits. Asked whether the continuation of such allegations would make him think about walking away from Arsenal, he says: “I’ll think about it.” But enemies were left in no doubt he would not shirk a fight. “If it is initiated to drive me out, I stay.”

Funny that. Craig Murray has still yet to receive a writ for his original allegations, but Usmanov claims he won't shirk from a fight. Strange that Schillings have already said they don't have any intentions to pursue Murray because they don't want to give him a platform on which to spread his views. They know full well that Usmanov would have a high chance of losing, and at the very least would be far more severely embarrassed than he already is.

Finally, to bring it all back towards the actual football aspect:

He also made it plain that, unlike Chelsea, Arsenal would have to pay their own way as a business rather than expect handouts. Usmanov may be a genuine fan of Arsenal – he even called Tony Adams “a real Gooner” – but he also referred to them as a “useful portfolio investment”.

Yes, you too can become a genuine fan of Arsenal as long as you're well briefed on their past by your PR advisers, as Usmanov obviously has been (although he gets at least three members of the 2002 double-winning team wrong). Then he gives the game away: anyone who describes a football club as a "useful portfolio investment" should never be let anywhere near the ground, let alone into the director's or chairman's box. Usmanov isn't just a phony, he's a vain, venal and pathetic man, and he will be fought every step of the way.

Related post:
Tim Ireland - Usmanov begins a new PR push

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007 

Usmanov-watch: The tide continues to turn.

Major kudos go out to both Peter Hill-Wood, Arsenal chairman who has strongly come out and said that neither does he want nor does the club need Usmanov's money, and to the Grauniad, which is continuing to follow up on the actions and reverberations started by Usmanov and his legal shysters, Schillings, attempting to silence Craig Murray and numerous other bloggers.

The article also provides this confirmation that Schillings realise they can't disprove Murray's accusations, but they sure can try to stop them from being read and disseminated:

Laura Tyler, of Schillings, said they did not intend to sue Murray directly because they did not want to give him a platform to express his views.

Considering how much a joke our libel laws are, leaving the defendant to prove their allegations rather than the litigant to prove that the allegations are defamatory, one would have thought that Schillings would be more than happy to go to court and potentially ruin Murray. That they have no intention of doing so speaks volumes.

Tim meanwhile has set up temporary shop to deal with the whole saga here. Matt Wardman also has the speech made by MEP Tom Wise last night, which thanks to parliamentary privilege should be able to be freely reported without any legal difficulties, but don't expect that to make any difference. Unity also writes a first of series of posts on rewriting the libel laws.

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Friday, September 21, 2007 

Usmanov and Schillings-watch: The web bites back.

I said on yesterday's post that Schillings really didn't know who they were messing with, and the overwhelming response from bloggers not just here in the UK but across the globe has rather vindicated it. Justin is already tracking 121 blogs that have posted on the actions of Usmanov's lackeying legal losers, and there are likely to be dozens more which haven't been identified yet.

Only MediaGrauniad and the Mirror (in the form of a Kevin Maguire blog post) have so far picked up on it from the MSM, but there's bound to be other pieces in tomorrow's press following the story up, especially considering that Boris Johnson has denounced the fact that his blog, set up by Tim and Clive, is among those to have been brought down by Fasthosts capitulation. Their claim that Tim and Clive had failed to remove the content in question is laughable; both Tim and Clive had more than accommodated Schillings' requests over what had to be removed. Quite simply, this had moved on from being a matter based on the posting of so-called defamatory material to a vendetta against the web-hosts. Schillings' problem is that it knows full well that Craig Murray has plenty of evidence to back up his original allegations, and the fact that they haven't served him personally with a writ, as he has requested, only proves the shallowness of their actions. They couldn't get the ball, so they decided to take out the men instead. Their reputation, backed up on their website by the laughable case studies currently being mocked across the "blogosphere", was at stake: too bad that they cared too much about that to notice that other well-known political figures were being hosted by Tim and Clive.

Indeed, if there was ever an example of blogging blowback, this is it. Dozens more blogs are now mirroring Craig's original post which started this whole mess; Arsenal fans and others who previously wouldn't have come across some of the unsavoury information about the possible future owner are now able to see him for the freedom of speech denying obese toad that he is; and the mainstream media itself, previously threatened before it had even printed a word about Usmanov are able to point their readers' in the direction of information they otherwise wouldn't have mentioned.

More pertinently to the legal side of things, it's understandably caused a commendable discussion about the ridiculous and discriminatory nature of our libel laws, now notorious for being a beacon for every tycoon, tyrant and half-wit with a grievance about an unpleasant article/book written about themselves to come and try their luck through our court system. Unity suggests that if any of us are ever called to serve on a libel jury, we move to return a not guilty verdict on the grounds that the law is an ass, as previously used during the Clive Ponting trial. Others are talking of a campaign along the lines of the current one over Iraqi employees of the armed forces. Others still are remarking on Usmanov's suitability to become Arsenal owner, should he succeed in an eventual takeover bid, something he's now raised the possibility of, noting the FA's recently adopted rules.

Now the cat's out of the bag, Schillings are going to quickly learn that it's going to be next to impossible to put this particularly agile, modern and digital pussy back in.

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Thursday, September 20, 2007 

Usmanov-watch: A pyrrhic victory.

Alisher Usmanov and his shower of lackeying legal cunts, Schillings, have finally pulled off a very pyrrhic victory. Despite comprehensively failing to remove Craig Murray's original blog post about Usmanov, which is still around if you know where to look, they've managed to spook Tim Ireland's webhost so much that they've pulled the plug on Tim and Clive's cluster of sites, also including Bob Piper, Boris Johnson and Craig Murray's blogs.

My advice to anyone thinking of starting a blog is to get it hosted with a US-based company. Not only are their rates usually remarkably cheaper than anything you'll be offered over here, but legal firms find it difficult to get anything removed, thanks to the good old first amendment. Won't stop them threatening you personally of course, but your webhosts themselves couldn't care less, as neither time have I been threatened has Dreamhost even bothered to contact me.

Knowing Tim, not to mention Craig and the others, Schillings really have picked the wrong people to start a fight with.

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Tuesday, September 18, 2007 

Usmanov-watch: More purchasing of shares, as well as paintings.

Great friend of this blog Alisher Usmanov is continuing his purchasing of Arsenal shares, with the BBC reporting that he now possesses 21% through his Red and White Holdings company, set up in conjunction with Farhad Moshiri. Danny Fizman is now the only remaining shareholder to own a higher percentage, of 24%.

All this has been going on while Usmanov's lawyers, Schillings, no doubt being handsomely renumerated for their "hard" work threatening bloggers, have been sending out cease and desist letters to anyone daring to criticise Usmanov, especially to newspapers, who have been informed that Usmanov's spell in prison during Soviet times was "politically motivated" and that he was pardoned by Gorbachev. Craig Murray's post on all things Usmanov is still available if you know where to look.

Usmanov's relationship with Uzbekistan's current brutal dictator, Islom Karimov, whose security services have been known to rape prisoners with broken bottles, not to mention the odd case or two of boiling to death, seems to be the basis for Usmanov's current attempts to further woo Putin and the Russian ruling class in general, despite owning the nominally liberal and oppositional Kommersant newspaper. Yesterday Usmanov paid over £25m to stop a Sotheby's auction of the art collection of the late Mstistlav Rostropovich, delighting the Russian government agency for culture, Roskultura, which described the collection as "invaluable". According to the Grauniad, Sotheby's initially refused to name the purchaser, only giving it once prompted, which seems to continue Usmanov's choice to stay in the shadows and send his legal attack dogs in first, despite the fact that his purchase of Arsenal shares is a cause of concern to the tens of thousands of fans across the world. Buying culture to impress the authoritarian Putin is one thing, buying a football club is quite another.

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Monday, September 10, 2007 

Anyone got a Schilling update.

Schillings have finally this afternoon deigned to reply to my two messages sent on Thursday evening. They requested that I remove their "copyrighted" letter, which I have done, not because I either want to, have to or feel the need to, but because I see no reason to prolong this pointless encounter. They and I consider the matter closed.

This whole affair has only once again highlighted how once a supposedly libelous article/post is out there online, it's incredibly difficult for it be removed, and not even Schillings, according to the drivel on their website about how they're the most feared and leading law firm, are likely to succeed in removing it from all the other sites it has subsequently spread to. Going after bloggers' only linking to articles is also one of the most cowardly and indefensible actions that these parasites, earning vast amounts of money working for some of the most unsavoury characters around spend their time doing. I do indeed hope that they sleep well at night.

Update: Added "Alisher Usmanov" to the labels so that this post will show up on the page currently being linked to by numerous bloggers explaining the temporary disappearance of Bloggerheads and other sites, thanks to Alisher Usmanov and his band of arse-lickers, Schillings.

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Thursday, September 06, 2007 

Anyone got a Schilling?

Stop! You can't link to that!

There's very little quite like the joy on returning home of an evening to find that you've been legally threatened in your absence. Last year this involved an injunction from the "dangerously deceitful, ruthless, exploitative and corrupt" Mr Mahzer Mahmood, courtesy of his lawyers, Farrer and Co. Imagine my excitement on finding the following in my inbox, this time from Schillings, acting on behalf of a certain Alisher Usmanov (you'll have to click to enlarge:)

Update: letter removed, not because I feel the need to bow to Schillings request that it be taken down or have to, but because I see no reason to prolong this pointless little affair.

I'm not the first to receive the delightful threats from Schillings on behalf of their client, nor probably the last: Julian Bond, owner of the UK blog aggregator voidstar.com also had Schillings on the phone telling him to remove Murray's post. His site had reproduced it verbatim: my original post, now edited to remove Craig's "false, indefensible and grossly defamatory" comments, only linked to Craig's while using his title as the hyperlink. It now only links to Craig's post. Having emailed Tim at Bloggerheads, it seems that Schillings have also now contacted Craig himself.

Schillings themselves aren't exactly very bright: here they are having apparently mailed/faxed a letter out to Dreamhost, based in the good old land of the free, and they're citing a legal precedent set in this country in order to threaten them. Good job Schillings; unless Mr Usmanov intends to sue Dreamhost in this country, I don't think you're going to get very far.

In any case, I've phoned up Schillings, discovered that those responsible for Mr Usmanov have left the office, and talked to the apparent work experience kid, who will relate my edits to the "false, indefensible and grossly defamatory" post to his superiors. There are however just a few other points to make:

1. Considering I currently have to my name somewhere in the region of £150.00 and no collateral whatsoever, neither Schillings nor Mr Usmanov if they pursued their action would get very rich off me.

2. That going after bloggers simply linking to a post because your big baby of a client has thrown his rattle out of the pram has to make you one of the most insufferable, sycophantic, brown-nosing little toadies on the face of the planet. Oh, I forgot, "you're only doing your job".

3. I would like to refer Schillings, although not their client, as he seems the kind who might be offended, to the precedent set by Arkell vs Pressdram, or indeed, to any of the legal responses from the Pirate Bay, such as this one. Thank you.

Update: Craig's original post has been temporarily removed pending legal advice.

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