Craig Murray is Released: The UK Scores an Own Goal
The UK Scores and Own Goal
[Image: taken from Wikileaks’s twitter feed in which they celebrate Craig Murray’s release. The text is: BREAKING: Former British ambassador Craig Murray finally released from prison #WelcomeHomeCraig]
Publication date: 2021-11-30
Happy News !! We'll, sort of.
On the morning of this day, Tuesday 30th of November 2021, former UK ambassador and Scottish independence advocate and all round principled guy Craig Murray was released from the Scottish prison in which he had been incarcerated for 4 months for the crime of writing and publishing words of truth. Ring any bells?
In front of the prison he begins his statement with "Happy St. Andrew's Day" and "congratulations to the Republic of Barbados who have finally shaken off the British monarchy", cutting straight to the political point; Scottish nationalism and independence.
The case which lead to Mr Murray’s imprisonment has been well covered by Consortium News. I recommend this article by Joe Lauria as a synopsis.
The date of release was made public by the Craig Murray Justice Campaign on November 17.
The event was attended in windy and chilly Scottish weather by a hundred odd supporters. Mr Murray made a 15 minute speech which is, of course, included below at the top of Sources. He made a number of points in his speech which are worthy of consideration. The first was that dignity is internal. It cannot be taken from you.
Mr Murray's "blog", which reported extensively on the sexual allegations charges leveled against Scottish politician Alex Salmond, exposed the charges and trial for the political assassination attempt that they were. Craig’s sentence for "jigsaw identification" was to a standard for a blogger, now writ in case law, as higher than for a member of the established media. Mr Murray sees this as the attack on press freedom that it is, and intends to ask the European Court of Human Rights for their opinion on the matter. This is likely to be costly but will no doubt cause further embarrassment to the British legal system. Unsurprisingly, the whole turn of events is intricately linked to the Julian Assange case. Mr Murray described himself as a “friend and colleague” of Assange, which is a rather mundane way of putting it.
Murray has been a close associate of Assange and worked with Wikileaks on numerous things. He has been a staunch advocate for them, and particularly for the type of new media which Assange pioneered with the organisation. Indeed, Murray has admitted that he received source information in Washington D.C. about the USA's Democratic National Committee (DNC) and its actions on behalf of Hillary Clinton to sabotage the primary campaign of her rival for the 2016 nomination, Bernie Sanders. Whether Mr Murray received documents on behalf of Wikileaks or not is unclear, but leaks from the DNC were published by Wikileaks. Here, we get tangled up in the Seth Rich story. Whomever the identity of the insider leaker was (note: no hacking, leaking) Mr Murray then lead the USA's intelligence services on a merry chase via several houses of ill-repute in the D.C. area, dropping off memory sticks with no doubt irrelevant and more likely humorous contents such that the government agents had to visit said houses and recover the irrelevant data. All of this elevated Mr Murray's position on the USA intelligence radar. His detailed coverage of Assange's trial at his “blog” likely added to the annoyance.
Detailed coverage of the evidentiary hearings of Assange’s extradition case were provided in English by independent journalists only. I recall, Murray, Medhurst, Gosztola, Elmazzi, Lauria (for Consortium News) and a British gentlemen whose name escapes me. That was it. These independent journalists wrote thousands of words a day for every day of the trial, not to mention live tweeting events. From the “established” media they couldn’t even do a short form daily summary. This dereliction of duty on what many, including John Pilger, saw as the biggest media trial in decades (since the Pentagon Paper’s case hit the USA’s Supreme Court) was alarming in the extreme.
What the UK government's brief imprisonment of Mr Murray has done is raise his stature, and provided him with insight into Scotland's prison system, upon which he commented quite insightfully in his statement upon release. He mentioned that he had received more than 2000 letters during his 4 month stay, which is in excess of 16 letters every day on average. They would likely have come in volume early on, placing a little strain on the gaol's correspondence section. Mr Murray stresses that although he believes the Scottish prison system is in urgent need of better policies, the staff working within it are commendable and do their best to alleviate policy shortfalls with kindness and respect. For example, Craig stayed in the "entrance" section of the prison where inmates normally spend the first two nights of their incarceration, but for the entirety of his imprisonment. Indeed, he states that every single prison officer with whom he interacted had expressed that they did not believe he should be in prison. So, a shout out to the Scottish prison officers for their compassion and principle! A couple even declared that they identified Craig as a political prisoner.
Mr Murray continues and discusses the nature of the prisoners with whom he'd interacted and the conditions of their lives. His conclusion is that reform is needed, particularly as it relates to poverty and drug addiction, and prisoners incarcerated on remand, which is precisely the situation in which Mr Assange finds himself. Thus, the UK has now given this Scottish independence advocate life experience to add to his political advocacy for not only Scottish independence and media freedom, but also social reform, particularly in the justice and prison systems.
The brits have a term for this sort of result. They call it an "own goal". As an end note, Mr Murray was sent many a book during his “stay” and has donated them to the prison library. He declares that HMP Edinburgh now has the best library of radical political thought in all of Britain’s prisons.
I am gratified to learn that Craig has returned to the bosom of his family.
I wish the justice campaign to take the case to the ECHR every success. It should be noted that this is not about “clearing his name” but about getting a dangerous legal precedent shown for what it is and removed.
PS: Those who know of Ray McGovern’s restraint on shaving to produce a rather lush white beard in support of Mr Assange’s desheveled state when he was manhandled from Ecuador’s UK Embassy may see a similar solidarity with Mr Murray’s “Saint Nicolas” beard as seen as he stands before his peers and declares his independence.
Sources
Craig Murray's full statement after being released from Saughton Prison, Edinurgh, Alba Party, their youtube channel, 2021-11-30
Craig Murray Is a Free Man, Joe Lauria, Consortium News, 2021-11-30
Craig Murray Justice Campaign, The website for the campaign to take the issue raised in Murray’s conviction (media freedom) to the European Court of Human Rights
12/13/16 – Craig Murray: DNC, Podesta emails leaked by Americans, not hacked by Russia – The Scott Horton Show, Scott Horton Show, 2016-12-13.
Statements in support of Murray taken from the blog section of the Craig Murray Justice Campaign website.
Countdown Series: Annie Machon, former MI5
Mohamed A. Elmaazi – Jailing the truth tellers: The shrinking space for independent journalism
Countdown Series: Ray McGovern, former CIA officer
Countdown Series: Eva Joly, Judge and former MEP
Culture
Lady Gaga - Imagine (Live at Baku 2015 European Games Opening Ceremony), Lady Gaga, her youtube channel, uploaded 2015-06-15
I am in no way implying that Mr Murray endorses this video. Its glamour is a little garish. But, it is the best version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” that I have ever heard, and within it are concepts of universal respect and compassion, and love, to which I expect Craig would ascribe. While listening, think of the displaced peoples of the Chagos Islands for whom Mr Murray has been a passionate advocate.
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