According to Murray, the Uzbek government overstated the activities of local militants and their connections to Al-Qaeda. He later wrote in "The Washington Post", that the material from the CIA "revealed the same pattern of information" as the "forced confessions" of which he had become aware. In October 2004, the British government said neither it, nor the intelligence agencies, had ever used torture or encouraged others to so on its behalf. A later enquiry by "The Washington Post", in connection with an interview with Murray, did not indicate the British had instituted an "absolute ban" on using information gained via torture. According to Murray, in March 2003 the Foreign Office legal team told him there was nothing to prevent their use of information gained by the Uzbeks using these methods.