LONDON, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Great Britain has dismissed its ambassador to Uzbekistan after months of the diplomat's speaking out against the Asian nation's poor human rights record.
Craig Murray, who was sacked Thursday, said he would sue the Foreign Office for damage to his health, the Guardian reported Friday.
For the last 15 months, Murray's outspoken criticisms of Tashkent had been awkward for both London and Washington. Murray says that both nations ignored Uzbekistan's human rights record, where torture is routine, because U.S. forces were using an airbase there for its Afghanistan operations.
Uzbek president Islam Karimov was angered when U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a friend of Murray's, brought up a speech the envoy made on human rights abuses in an official meeting.
Murray, 45, is married with two children, and was one of Britain's youngest ambassadors when he arrived in Tashkent in 2002. In September 2003 he had a nervous breakdown.
He recently had a near-fatal pulmonary embolism, and more recently his wife has left him.
