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by Craig Murray

Ed: Craig Murray's sites are now being hosting in The Netherlands at Safehost.nl - a hosting company operated by the proprietors of Atlantic Free Press.

We at Safehost Netherlands feel that bloggers, hosting companies and Internet publishers cannot operate if they are bullied by rich plaintiffs and we make it a point to work closely with our clients - as we are a small company and prefer to stay that way.

We are willing to stand behind our customers.

The Netherlands tends to be more tolerant and liberal than most nations of many issues - including Freedom of Speech - and work housed here will not be subject to the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, the NSA or any other invasive federal legislation in the USA. And those under the Draconian "Secrecy Act" and ridiculous libel laws in the U.K. will also be less liable to see problems with Safehost.

It is good to be blogging again. Many thanks to everyone for your tremendous support while I was down, and especially all those bloggers who protested against this censorship, achieved just by the layout of cash, with nothing being tested in court. I have still had no contact at any time from Usmanov or the shysters of Schillings.

We are back on craigmurray.org.uk. We hope that craigmurray.co.uk will be back too very soon. I have a plan for dealing with Usmanov and getting this matter into court, but am holding fire for a couple of days until we get the co.uk address back, where most people look for me.

Usmanov: Truth Will Out

If you read the awful Mark Franchetti article (see below) and strip it of spin, some facts do emerge which confirm the truth of my account.

- Usmanov's "pardon" did indeed come from Uzbekistan and had nothing to do with Mikhail Gorbachev, contrary to the lies of Schillings

- Usmanov was never a political prisoner opposed to communism. He was indeed convicted for corrupt dealings. He claims he was the accidental victim of a friend being set up - even if that were true, it does not make him an anti-communist political prisoner, which is how Schillings attempted to portray him.

- I published that

Key to this triumph has been the Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov, chairman of Gazprominvest Holdings. This subsidiary is the channel for massive slush funds. In November 2004, for example, a payment of $88 million to Gulnara, the daughter of President Karimov of Uzbekistan, secured Uzbekistan's gas contracts for Gazprom from under the noses of the United States, which had originally secured them through a bribe from the subsequebtly defunct Enron. In a series of transactions typical of Gazprom, at the same time Usmanov transferred half of a Russian bank, Mapobank, to Putin's private secretary, Piotr Jastrzebski. Jastrzebski was Usmanov's former flatmate at Moscow Diplomatic Academy and bagman for Putin. Putin instructed Karimov in return for the cash to kick out the US military base which dominated Central Asia, and Gazprom had secured the strategic kingpin to dominate the Central Asian and Caucasus gas reserves.

Usmanov now tells Franchetti:

He also became close friends with fellow students Sergei Yastrzhembsky and Sergei Prikhodko, both now aides to Putin

Now that is the first published admission I have seen of the key Usmanov/Jastrzebski relationship. Franchetti shows that I was right about this, and about the origin of that relationship as students. Might this not indicate to a less biased observer that my sources on Usmanov are sound?

That makes three absolutely key things I have published about Usmanov that are now shown to be true. Is there one thing I have published that has been disproved by the hordes of mainstream media looking to attack us?

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