THE HANDSTAND

APRIL 2006
film news

OUR MAN IN UZBEKISTAN  - STEVE COOGAN TO PLAY CRAIG MURRAY IN NEW MOVIE

The sensational memoirs of Craig Murray, the former ambassador to Uzbekistan who was sacked after exposing appalling human rights abuses, are to be made into a movie starring comedian Steve Coogan. Murray's colourful tenure of office in Uzbekistan was marked by claims of his excessive drinking, womanising and undiplomatic behaviour towards the Americans and now film makers believe his story has all of the right ingredients for a blockbusting dark comedy.

But Scotsman Murray's candid and shocking new book due for publication in June also exposes atrocities in Uzbekistan under the US-funded regime of President Islam Karimov.

Controversial British director Michael Winterbottom has snapped up the film rights to  'Murder in Samarkand'  in which he describes as "fantastic... a very funny version of a Graham Greene novel."
The director of 'The Road to Guantanamo' is believed to have lined up funnyman Coogan for the part of Murray after they worked together on '24 Hour Party People' and 'Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story'. Murray confirmed the unlikely partnership. He said: "It is extremely exciting news and I'm absolutely thrilled about the fact that my story will be brought to a wider audience.

"I've met with Michael, Steve Coogan, and with a very well-known screenwriter, and things are looking very positive. Steve seems very keen. I think he's a very good actor, who has a wide dramatic range. "It's quite a peculiar feeling having someone playing you on screen and will take a while to get used to." Murray added: "The book alternates between clutches of humour, which is sometimes gallows humour because when you are operating in that environment and terrible things are happening all around you, you need a certain amount of gallows humour to keep you going.
"There are also very, very sad parts in the book. People who have read it in pre-publication process have said it brought them to tears at times. It is quite an emotional rollercoaster of a read."

Movie production is scheduled for next year while Scottish publishing house, Mainstream, will publish the 160,000-word memoir in June this year.

An ambitious 43-year-old, Murray landed in Uzbekistan in August 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks as Britain's youngest ever ambassador. He had served previously as a senior diplomat in Africa, Poland, and London. But his dream post, quickly turned into a nightmare after learning of rebellious prisoners being boiled to death and civilians being raped and murdered allegedly by government agents. Later, when Murray went public with claims that MI6 used intelligence gained by the Uzbek authorities by torture, the Foreign Office presented him with 18 disciplinary charges, including an allegation that he gave out British visas to young Uzbek girls in exchange for sex. He was given a week to resign, but vigorously denounced the charges, and refused to resign. The allegations were later disproved and he returned to his post, only for a strongly-worded memo that criticised the British and US governments' policy of accepting information extracted through torture by the Uzbek government, to be leaked to the press.

"We are selling our souls for dross," he said.

On October 15, 2004, Murray was sacked from his ambassadorial post for "operational reasons" and later charged with gross misconduct for criticising the Foreign Office publicly. He went on to stand for parliament in Blackburn as an independent candidate against his former boss Jack Straw in the 2005 General Election, but only came fifth, with five per cent of votes.

In 2002, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture concluded that brutal torture in Uzbekistan was "institutionalised, systematic, and rampant." Investigators found methods of torture that police used against people in detention included beatings with truncheons, electric shock, hanging people by their ankles, rape and sexual humiliation, asphyxiation with plastic bags and gas masks, and threats of physical harm to relatives. One of the cases Human Rights Watch uncovered was that of Muzafar Avazov, who died in August 2002 after being boiled alive in a prison run by the
Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was arrested on charges of religious extremism. On May 13, 2005, in Andijan, government troops surrounded thousands of unarmed protesters and opened fire, killing and wounding hundreds. Those who tried to run away were shot by a waiting group of troops or were picked off by rooftop snipers.

The land of Alexander the Great, Uzbekistan is also home to a terrible tyranny that survives on heroin and women trafficking, as well as cotton slavery and torture.

President Karimov came to power of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in 1990 and declared independence a year later. In 1995, Karimov extended his term until 2000 under allegations of fixing
and was reelected on January 9, 2000 with 91.9% of the vote. The following year, he won another referendum extending the length of presidential terms from five to seven years. After 9/11, he was seen as a strategic ally for the US in its war on terror due to a mutual opposition to regional Islamists and hosted 800 US troops during the Afghanistanm war. However, the US has since denounced Karimov after the horrific killing of protestors in 2005 and the troops were removed from the K2 base.
Received from EW.