BRITAIN: The British Foreign Office is threatening to sue a former ambassador for publishing documents which he says support allegations about British complicity with human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.
Government lawyers have told Craig Murray to remove the documents from his website immediately because they infringe crown copyright.
They have warned they will seek a high court injunction unless Mr Murray also gives an undertaking by 4pm on Thursday that he will not reproduce the documents.
However, Mr Murray, who quit his post in Uzbekistan in 2004, has refused to remove the documents, most of which he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and Data Protection Act.
He placed them on his website last Tuesday to corroborate claims in his book, Murder In Samarkand, from which they were deleted on the Foreign Office's orders.
On Friday, Gareth Buttrill wrote to him on behalf of the government lawyers, the Treasury Solicitors: "As you do not have permission or a licence to reproduce the documents, we consider that crown copyright has been infringed."
Mr Buttrill also claimed that information obtained under the FOI or DPA remained subject to crown copyright.
"Even if a document is released under the Data Protection Act or Freedom of Information Act, that does not entitle you to make further reproductions of that document by, for example, putting them on your website or making further copies to be provided to third parties," Mr Buttrill wrote.
"The copyright remains enforceable. As you are infringing crown copyright, you are required to remove the documents from your website immediately and to provide an undertaking that you will not further infringe crown copyright by reproducing these documents, or any other document or documents in which crown copyright subsists and which relate to Foreign and Commonwealth Office matters, without permission or licence."
Mr Murray wrote back to Mr Buttrill yesterday to tell him he would not remove the documents until he had received legal advice.
He argued that it was not usually necessary to remove publications from circulation pending court decisions on copyright cases.
He added: "Your peremptory demands reveal the motive behind your actions in this case - the suppression of information for political purposes.
"I don't believe it is right to use crown copyright in this way.
"Your contention in your letter of July 7th that the government can use crown copyright arbitrarily and politically to suppress material released under the Freedom of Information Act, would obviate the whole purpose of that act in giving the public a 'right to know' what is being done in their name."