Criminal Billionaires Easily Manipulate the Media – by JG
This is going to be a long article, and in fact, it will be a “resource piece” where I am just paraphrasing an entire article from another site (www.liveleak.com), where they did the same because they are also trying to get the truth out about Alisher Usmanov’s history as a criminal businessman. Would I have liked to just talk about it myself and just post the link? Sure, but many of you wouldn’t bother clicking the link and would go straight to commenting, which would defeat the purpose. If you want to know why I (and loads of other true Arsenal fans) don’t want Usmanov sliding his fat face into a power position at the club, then read the “forwarded” article below (in it’s entirety).
~~ Craig Murray, former United Kingdom Ambassador to Uzbekistan, author of the book, Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror, and contributor to Atlantic Free Press has recently had his personal blogging site – as well as a number of sites not owned by him and on the same server, taken down by his U.K. hosting company due to pressure from Schillings, a high-powered London Law firm, on behalf of Uzbeki Alisher Usmanov – the latest Russian billionaire to move to the United Kingdom. Usmanov’s lawyers have gone after the host of Murray’s site rather than Craig Murray himself. It seems they would prefer not to have Murray on the stand in a courtroom. Usmanov is allegedly livid – as it has been leaked that he was not a political prisoner at all, but rather a hard-nosed criminal.
We at Atlantic Free Press feel that bloggers, hosting companies and Internet publishers cannot operate if they are bullied by rich plaintiffs.
Defamation law in the United Kingdom, asinine as it is – needs reform. Mistakes on blogs can easily be sorted – particularly where they permit commenting which allows postings to be criticised, facts corrected, and arguments opposed. Rather than arm-twisting legal tactics.
However, Usmanov, the nouveau riche thug that he is, chose to throw money at his lawyers to shut down those who dare to legitimately criticise him and has now gotten his hands full and has been locked in the cyber jaws of what is known as the “Streisand Effect” and learned what the power of the Internet really is. THOUSANDS of blogger’s have rallied to support Craig and those who have been taken out by Usmanov’s high priced lawyers at Schillings (whose reputation, backed up on their website by the laughable case studies currently being mocked across the “blogosphere”, is now at stake). Too bad they did not do enough research nor care to notice that other well-known political figures were on the same servers as Craig and were also pulled – including prospective candidate for London mayor Boris Johnson. Now it’s now gone viral on the Net and is being picked up in the mainstream media.
Mr Eugenides sums it up:
If you can be silenced for calling a businessman a crook, then you can be silenced for calling a politician a crook, too. Then its everyones problem.
We have chosen to reprint Murray’s original post in full below and posted an earlier article on the subject
I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you.
You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media because he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter:
Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.
Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal.
He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke “Gorbachev”, a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue. Usmanov’s pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and from 1991 President of Uzbekistan.
Karimov ordered the “Pardon” because of his alliance with Usmanov’s mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on Gorbachev’s side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin standing on the tanks outside the White House.
Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World’s most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the “privatisation” process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed. Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the country’s natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to secure this.
This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand. Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through Putin’s long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski. Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college. Gazprom Investholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests outside Russia, Usmanov’s role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom’s bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.
Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has bought out with the owners having no choice the only independent national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish this through Gazprom.
The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window. All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist’s death, is set out in great detail here. Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that this is not particularly remarkable.
Rape by the powerful is an everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand page 120. If anyone has more detail on the specific case involving Usmanov please add a comment. I reported back in 2002 or 2003 in an Ambassadorial top secret telegram to the Foreign Office that Usmanov was the most likely favoured successor of President Karimov as totalitarian leader of Uzbekistan.
I also outlined the Gazprom deal (before it happened) and the present by Usmanov to Putin (though in Jastrzebski’s name) of half of Mapobank, a Russian commercial bank owned by Usmanov. I will never forget the priceless reply from our Embassy in Moscow. They said that they had never even heard of Alisher Usmanov, and that Jastrzebski was a jolly nice friend of the Ambassador who would never do anything crooked.
Sadly, I expect the football authorities will be as purblind. Football now is about nothing but money, and even Arsenal supporters as tight-knit and homespun a football community as any can be heard saying they don’t care where the money comes from as long as they can compete with Chelsea. I fear that is very wrong. Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term. ~~
Extremely rich people who get caught for being involved in criminal and illegal dealings get “off the hook” all the time, because they pay certain people fat wads of cash to sway their decisions, it’s very rare in this day and age to see proven (billionaire) criminals convicted, because of the power they wield with money, unless other billionaires sell them out and have them take the fall. Alisher Usmanov payed his way out of jail because he knew the right people…a typical outcome for people like him.
If you took anything from the article, just read the last sentence “Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term”. Key words IN THE LONG TERM! Sure, at first, it would be soooo amazing, “ooh we’re signing expensive players”, sparkly sparkly, distraction distraction. Really quick I would like to post a comment from the previous article that I felt deserved acclamation, here it is…
~from andy
Usmanov is a business man and a billionaire; yes he has money, he knows how to run a business structure which both are key ingredients for our club but yet you say he’s a “true Arsenal fan”. Let me tell you this, he’s no more an Arsenal fan than I am. To me, he see’s us as a business opportunity. Based just on that I hardly think he’d stop chasing. When we are in our deepest troubles, he releases a perfectly written open letter that speaks the hearts of frustration that the Arsenal supporters has been in burden for some time, what a coincidence! The timing is perfect to rub salt on old wound. It’s all professionaly prepared and planned, unlike RVP’s tweeter. In the meantime, he could be running and setting up a website dedicated to run a poll for people to vote for Usmanov ‘in’ or ‘out’ using his profit he just made from selling one of his houses. He could even hire journalists or use his empire of wealth, influence and business connections to his advantage. (Usmanov manipulating the media, brilliant from andy)
You see, I want my beloved club to be set in stone for all eternity, not to shine brightly for a while and then pop like a balloon and deflate. In the last article, people made me out as somebody who likes the current board at Arsenal…BAH! I laugh in their faces. I don’t really like the board at Arsenal all that much because they are just a bit too cautious at times about spending in the transfer window, which don’t get me wrong, is a good thing because they are making sure the club can afford the annual payments for the stadium, but they get a bit carried away sometimes. This doesn’t mean though, that we should be in favor of trading the current board (the lesser of two evils) for Usmanov.
Now, I know this article is ridiculously long and I apologise for that, but this is important. You lot, who don’t give a sh!t where the money comes from, you just want that “money money money”, need to understand that you are selling out the soul of Arsenal (a beacon of proper business ethics, morals, and beautiful football) for the love of money. That’s the bottom line, you’re willing to sell the morals, dignity and ethics that our club stands for, for a fat Russian thugs money. Take a good look in the mirror, do you see a gunner wearing the red and white? Or a pig with a giant £ stamped on it’s chest…
I’d like to end this article with a picture that speaks volumes about how true Arsenal fans (who actually go to the games) feel about Usmanov. They are most likely educated/ well informed people who understand how corrupted the “billionaire” world is, and don’t want Usmanov corrupting and soiling Arsenal FC.
Be patient fellow gooners, our club is not faltering, keep the faith, protect the Arsenal code, silverware is on the way.
P.S – touche on the “love of money is the root of all evil” quote from the last article, I did get that wrong…lol
ARSENAL FOR LIFE
by JG
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