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Craig Murray censored for attacking Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman

Censored | 07.09.2007 21:27

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.”

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

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Cant wait to see him run out with the team at Highbury

10.09.2007 11:46

That guy needs to go on a diet.

Oh Dear


Annis

18.09.2007 12:45

As Mr Hill-Wood once said of Stan Kroenke 'we don't need his sort' at the Arsenal. His way is not The Arsenal Way. David Dein - you have sold your soul, and are attempting to sell us, to the Devil. I hope you never have a good night's sleep again in your life!

I know I won't after seeing that picture - yuck!!!!

Annis


Russian Roulette

22.09.2007 02:00

Buying a British football club is chicken-feed if you have billions to squander.

But why do it?

Well, perhaps you really are a football fan.

Perhaps.
But, if so, why not buy a club in your own country and buy the best footballers on earth to play for it?
After all, although every man doesn't have his price, most men, alas, will sooner or later take the shilling.

But if you need a guaranteed reason to enter Britain easily and whenever you like, owning one of its major football clubs would be a good way to do it.

And that would mean you could come and go across Britain's borders and thus be at liberty to organise within the EU and also in the US your normal business - crime in general and fraud, money-laundering and murder in particular.

And that is how post-Soviet Russian gangsterism (which makes Al Capone, Legs Diamond and Bugs Malone look as though they really were the children who played them in the film) has entered the UK.

And if one of your specialities at home is murdering journalists who try to expose you, you won't think twice about using the heaviest and most dishonourable hammers of the English legal system to silence critics in Britain, nor to gratuitously dismiss some of the most talented people on earth who have had the misfortune to find themselves in your employ, nor to resort to your Russian habits for the disposal of those who won't desist from annoying you.

After all, your objective isn't to run your football club successfully, nor to be persona grata with the media, is it?
It's to give you the access to run your real business.

If the police and the intelligence services are serious about stopping Russian murders in Britain, they could start by withdrawing a few peoples' visas and placing in judicially-supervised trust the UK property of such people.

This has gone too far and, if not stopped, will go a lot further.

Gerard Mulholland


I feel sorry

22.09.2007 09:54

for the poor girl that fat bastard raped

Gott Und Himmel


Have Reposted the Article

22.09.2007 14:01

Hi, i've reposted the article over at my Myspace blog. As i've said over there, there are more important things in this world to worry about than worrying about my profile there getting deleted, and this report needs to be posted all over the place.

Up North John


More censorship?

22.09.2007 18:29

The link to Craig Murray's blog doesn't work because the entire site is down as a result of threats from Usmanov's lawyers - taking a couple of other political blogs with it see  http://www.chickyog.net/2007/09/20/public-service-announcement/.

Perhaps more sinisterly the Google link in your article no longer works either ('less there's a typo).

Pete

Pete Berry


Who owns what is bought with stolen wealth?

22.09.2007 19:36

How is it that the wealth produced by people slaving in the Gulags, and from raw materials thieved from the people, is used by foreign Thatcherites (Thatcher was on the phone to Yeltsin plotting for hours) to buy British football clubs?

It was bad enough when it was just Chelsea, but now Arsenal too.

With Gordon Brown coming out as an open Thatcherite, what should be done? Brown's stupid economics have destroyed the value of the Pound, and is now on the way to destroying the Banking system. He deserves the Order of Lenin for debauching the currency. Prepare for economic disaster.

Ilyan


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