Proposed Matthew Leeming Oxus Expedition Leaves Debts & Failure

Mid last year, Silk Road Briefing was in contact with British based Matthew Leeming concerning a project he was putting together to discover the source of the Oxus River in Afghanistan. Leeming, who was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, has written about Afghanistan for the British media, including the Times, Sunday Telegraph, Spectator, and the Literary Review. Silk Road Briefing, always open to providing funding for the adventurous, provided £2,000 to assist with this and specifically to get the expedition website up and running. That was announced on this website in May last year.

What has transpired since is that the proposed website domain is unreachable and Leeming, questioned about this lack of progress, failed to respond to emails.

However, a further piece about the proposed Oxus expedition appeared in the Daily Telegraph in January this year

Matthew Leeming

Accordingly, Silk Road Briefing again attempted to contact Leeming to no avail. Finally, upon threat of legal action, he replied. At this juncture Silk Road Briefing requested return of the funding in view of the lack of promised work and lack of contact. Leemings’ response has been to indicate he has no money to return and to again appear to refuse contact with us.

At best, Leeming’s planned expedition to discover the source of the Oxus is badly organised and shows little, if any regard for sponsors. Money sent has not been used for the agreed purpose, and contact about this issue has been ignored. Silk Road Briefing regrets this state of affairs however has no further option to advise that Matthew Leeming’s attempts to raise finance for the proposed Oxus expedition have not come to fruition and we have not found him honourable to deal with. Accordingly we cannot recommend his involvement in any expeditions to potential financiers or sponsors.

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