Accusations of criminal activity

On 2 September 2007, Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, referred to Alisher Usmanov's conviction for various crimes in the former USSR, for which he had been jailed for six years during the 1980s, as well as making further allegations of criminal activity. Usmanov's lawyers claim he was a political prisoner pardoned under Mikhail Gorbachev's administration, though Murray claims the pardon was actually the work of Uzbek President Islom Karimov. The article was subsequently removed by Murray's web host under pressure from Usmanov's legal team, who also contacted independent Arsenal blogs and websites warning them to remove any references to Murray's allegations, and any reproduction of Craig Murray's weblog posting. As of 20 September 2007, apart from Craig Murray's blog, Tim Ireland's blog had also been removed for reproducing Murray's article. The removal of the host server also caused the loss of other blogs belonging to Boris Johnson, Bob Piper and Clive Summerfield.

Wikipedia, September 21st. 2007