Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror

· Random House
3.5
2 reviews
Ebook
416
Pages

About this ebook

When Craig Murray arrived in Uzbekistan to take up his post in 2002, he was a young ambassador with a brilliant career and a taste for whisky and women. But after hearing accounts of dissident prisoners being boiled to death and innocent people being raped and murdered by agents of the state, he started to question both his role and that of his country in so-called 'democratising' states.

Following his discovery that the British government was accepting information obtained under torture, Murray could no longer maintain a diplomatic silence. When he voiced his outrage, Washington and 10 Downing Street decided he had to go. But Uzbekistan had changed the high-living diplomat and there was no way he was going to go quietly. In this candid and at times shocking memoir, Murray lays bare the dark and dirty underside of the War on Terror.

Ratings and reviews

3.5
2 reviews
Christopher Parsons
November 6, 2013
Though I admittedly found Murray a bit hard to read at various points - the book tends to read as a justification of his actions, and defence against UK political machinations that drove him from his position - the book is written such that it is quick to power through it. Moreover, Murray imparts a very personal account of his work as an ambassador, to the effect that the reader comes away with a (often negative) position towards Uzbekistan and the politics of the West following 9/11. It's a decent enough book, though not one that I'd put on any kind of a 'must read' list.

About the author

Craig Murray joined the Diplomatic Service in 1984 and served in Nigeria, Poland and Ghana before being appointed Ambassador to Uzbekistan. He retired from the Civil Service in 2005 and now works as a writer and broadcaster.

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