One of the most recent scandals involving Britain's M16, Greek intelligence officers and 28 Pakistani suspects was alleged to have taken place in the Greek capital Athens.

According to the weekly publication Proto Thema, the Pakistani immigrants were abducted last July following the London transport bombings. They were then hooded before being interrogated by both British and Greek agents. A week later, they were unceremoniously dumped on the street in the dead of night and warned not to speak of their ordeal or else face serious repercussions.

Despite denials by officials of the Greek and British governments, the incident has caused a furor in Greece, where the public universally abhors foreign interference on its country's soil.

Proto Thema has named all those connected with the incident, including a top-ranking British diplomat, who was hurriedly recalled to Britain apparently out of concern for his safety. Two of the named Greek intelligence agents were also pulled out from their postings in Kosovo.

In the meantime, the Greek justice minister has called for an enquiry, evidencing a schism between various government arms, while a lawyer representing the Pakistanis is preparing a case against the officers in question. Dimitris Papangelopoulos, chief prosecutor, has asked for details of the case to be handed to his office.

On the other hand, the British press has been warned off the story and have been issued with a gag order not to name names.

This revelation comes hard on the heels of a leaked memo purporting to be a transcript of a conversation that took place between the British Prime Minister and his US counterpart in 2004 that suggests George W. Bush was mulling over the idea of bombing the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera television network.

The subsequent report by Britain's Daily Mirror, which gave the gist of the document, elicited the hasty issuance of a 'D notice' or gag order from Britain's attorney-general before the paper's planned publication of the memo in its entirety.

Britain has vehemently denied the Daily Mirror report; the US has called it ridiculous, yet two British civil servants, thought to be responsible for the leak, are to be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Acts.

Pouring fuel on the flames on the seeming duplicity of the British government is Britain's former Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray.

Murray has long clamed he was ousted from his post by the Foreign Office when he insisted on highlighting Uzbek human rights abuses. As Nick Paton Walsh of the Guardian has rightly pointed out "one minute he was our man in Tashkent, and the next he was a major embarrassment for the Foreign Office."

"His distinctly undiplomatic assessment of Uzbekistan's human rights record propelled him [Murray] into a lengthy battle with the Foreign Office," writes Paton Walsh. "He was subjected to a humiliating disciplinary investigation, had his personal life publicly shredded and suffered a string of health problems. He became the rogue ambassador."

Uzbekistan until recently was an important US ally, allowing the Pentagon to lease one of its southern bases to launch air assaults on Afghan insurgents. Murray was well aware of Uzbekistan's strategic importance but, even so, was unwilling to turn a blind eye when it came to its alleged torture practices.

The "Rogue Ambassador" claims that the Foreign Office has destroyed not only his diplomatic career but also his marriage and he now wants the public to know the truth about the British government's double-faced stance on torture.

Amid government threats of prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, Murray has thrust two official documents into the public domain that go a long way to proving that the British government happily engorged intelligence garnered from the torture of detainees and gave a wink and a nod to the practice of 'extraordinary rendition'.

The first document contains an exchange of telegrams between Murray and the Foreign Office during 2002-2004 concerning the former envoy's worries that intelligence transmitted to London by Uzbek secret services was "torture tainted."

The second is a missive from Foreign Office lawyer Michael Wood arguing that the use of intelligence gained from torture does not contravene the relevant UN Convention.

I'm no lawyer but I would argue with Wood that the fact that state signatories to the Convention are deemed to be "desiring to make more effective the struggle against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment throughout the world," would bar Britain or any other country from benefiting from the fruits of such torture.

"This minute from Michael Wood is perhaps the most important document that has become public about "extraordinary rendition," says Murray, adding, "It is irrefutable evidence of the government's use of torture material, and that I was attempting to stop it. It is no wonder that the government is trying to suppress this."

Since Murray's two-year long face-off with the Foreign Office, his stance appears to have been vindicated from an unlikely quarter. The US State Department has announced that due to Uzbekistan's poor human rights record it no longer qualifies to be a recipient of American aid.

Furthermore, on the US Department of State website, Uzbekistan features in its "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices during 2004."

According to the Department of State report on Uzbekistan, "police and the NSS (National Security Service) routinely tortured, beat and otherwise mistreated detainees to obtain confessions or incriminating information. Police, prison officials, and the NSS allegedly used suffocation, electric shock, rape, and other sexual abuse . . . Defendants in trials often claimed that their confessions, on which the prosecution based its cases, were extracted by torture."

It's a similar story in the US where the president has been lambasting papers for publishing revelations that he personally ordered unimpeded eavesdropping on the communications of American citizens and where administration officials have been regularly denying reports of US gulags on European soil and the rendition of detainees to countries that routinely practice torture when all the evidence points in another direction.

As the self-ascribed leaders of the democratic world and proponents of a free press, it's surely about time that Britain and the US cleaned up their own gardens before pointing their decidedly grubby fingers at others.

Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.