Craig Murray identifies complainers in Salmond trial

[Coconutmeg]

www.scotsman.com/news/crime/craig-murray-to-begin-jail-sentence-after-appeal-fails-3328454%

I really think he did this on purpose just to be a dick - exactly as he did when he gave the name of one of the accusers in the rape case against Assange on Newsnight.

Statement from Scottish PEN:

mobile.twitter.com/ScottishPEN/status/1421088360798560257

He is a dick. Not only did he identify them but he stuck two fingers up at the justiciary over it.

Contrary to what Twitter thinks he s not being jailed for being a journalist (he's not a journalist on the first place), but because he broke the law.

Even if he were a journalist, journalists are not above the law and can be convicted and sentenced accordingly.

He used to be a good guy when he was an ambassador but he has lost the plot since; as has PEN (not sure if my pun is intentional or not)

He did not identify them. That's not what he was convicted for. He was convicted of publishing snippets of information that would have allowed readers who were aware of other snippets of information to put two and two together and work out who the complainers were.

This is called "jigsaw identification".

Another person was convicted of identifying some of the complainers though. That person tweeted actual names.

Craig Murray was one of about a dozen journalists to have published information which allows jigsaw identification of the complainers, the most prominent of which are BBC and Guardian journalists whose articles and tweets continue to be openly and publicly available.

Please note I am not saying Murray isn't guilty, even though I am aware that there are serious shortcomings in the prosecution case. Having discussed the case with legal professionals, it seems clear to me that the judge quite reasonably found him guilty, even if question marks hang over the prosecution case.

The real problem lies in the fact that the only person prosecuted for jigsaw identification is also the only prominent writer who publicised the defence case brought by Alex Salmond.

The other journalists who published articles that allow even someone completely unfamiliar with the case to identify at least two complainers were all against Salmond.

I am not linking to those articles or naming names, but I will say that Murray's snippets of information were far too obscure for me to identify anyone. He did write a "Yes, Minister" parody after all, which made that even harder. However the BBC and Guardian articles and tweets were far more direct, requiring no mental effort to identify complainers.

The Supreme Court unsurprisingly refused to allow Murray's appeal. If you know anything about the enmity that the UK establishment has expressed towards the former ambassador turned whistleblower about UK collusion with Uzbekistan's torture regime, that was a foregone conclusion.

What concerns me as a freelance journalist is that the judge in this case categorised corporate journalists, like those writing for the BBC and Guardian as legitimate and therefore worthy of special legal protections against a prosecution for jigsaw identification and decreed that independent journalists did not qualify for the same protection. The opportunity this offers to a government seeking to suppress journalism critical of its actions is immense.

Jonathon Cook just wrote an article about the dangers this ruling presents to independent journalists:

www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2021-07-30/craig-murrays-jailing-is-the-latest-move-in-the-battle-to-snuff-out-independent-journalism/

The intention, says Murray, was to deny Salmond the chance to take on London and make a serious case for independence, and thereby expose the SNP’s increasing lip service to that cause

I'm sorry but that destroys any shred of credibility there might be in that article.

Thanks, Charley.

I'm not always 100% behind Craig Murray, by any means, but his treatment over this court case stinks, and it's very worrying in the context of journalistic freedom how the standards have been applied selectively to those who support or oppose the government.

It is possible, of course, to oppose the stifling of a journalist while also disagreeing with much of what they write.

A friend recently described him as a "complete conspiracy nutcase" and still objected to the judge's decision that freedom of speech protection applies only to corporate journalists.

We can easily disagree with Murray, Arabella, while noting that the way he has been treated is wrong, because we don't see the world in black and white.

@KimikosNightmare

The intention, says Murray, was to deny Salmond the chance to take on London and make a serious case for independence, and thereby expose the SNP’s increasing lip service to that cause

I'm sorry but that destroys any shred of credibility there might be in that article.

The SNP has not been pursuing independence in any way that matters for years now. Or more accurately I should say the leadership of the SNP.

It even currently opposes a Scottish independence activist in court who seeks to establish that a Section 30 order is not required for the Scottish people to gain independence. Alongside the UK Government btw.

But my experience with independence supporters and unionists alike is that they either judge the SNP's performance one way or another. And nothing much can change that. I only changed my mind after I became aware of its proselytizing on behalf of the doctrine of gender identity. Then I had to consider if the criticism on the SNP's stance on self-id and its implementation in Scotland was justified, was it possible that other criticism of its policies was also justified?

And the answer was no in far fewer instances than I expected. Or liked.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

@KimikosNightmare

I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

You are dismissing an article written by one of our foremost human rights-focused journalists, because you do not believe that Jonathon Cook's assertion as to why Salmond was framed could possibly be right. (Although your "loses any shred of credibility" suggests general disdain, if not contempt for Cook in any case.)

I say there is no other conclusion. There are a lot of good articles written about this affair that have led me to it.

And my point is that Salmond was framed in a truly shocking and blatant manner. The UK establishment, including mainstream media, played along because the current leadership of the SNP is in no danger of pursuing independence but they still fear Salmond. And even if prison was unlikely, at the very least a court case would damage his reputation and so hinder the independence movement.

So anyone on Salmond's side is fair game. As Murray found out.

My other point is that once I started questioning one set of SNP policies, it seemed prudent to look into others only to find that criticism from both the unionists about SNP performance on government business as well as from the independence movement about SNP performance on independence was justified in far too many instances.

@KimikosNightmare

He used to be a good guy when he was an ambassador but he has lost the plot since; as has PEN (not sure if my pun is intentional or not)

Are you sure? I read something recently about how he left his wife and meet his current wife when he was an ambassador. Let’s just say it made for interesting reading.

I don't know nearly as much about this as any of you.

But in general this case has been exploited politically all over the place. Dodgy handling etc.

All those women. Not guilty.

I know what I think.

And now it's all being dragged up again.

My other point is that once I started questioning one set of SNP policies, it seemed prudent to look into others only to find that criticism from both the unionists about SNP performance on government business as well as from the independence movement about SNP performance on independence was justified in far too many instances

So criticism was justified

Then I had to consider if the criticism on the SNP's stance on self-id and its implementation in Scotland was justified, was it possible that other criticism of its policies was also justified?

And the answer wasnoin far fewer instances than I expected. Or liked

But here you say the answer was "no" - criticism was not justified.

But here you say the answer was "no" - criticism was not justified.

Yes, KimikosNightmare, in some cases criticism was not justified. But when I first started looking into those other issues raised by unionist politicians, I admit that I fully expected the criticism not to be justified at all. On education for instance or the way the Scottish Government treats Local Authorities. But I found it was, which was disappointing.

I should have worded that better to avoid the confusion.

@NiceGerbil

I don't know nearly as much about this as any of you.

But in general this case has been exploited politically all over the place. Dodgy handling etc.

All those women. Not guilty.

I know what I think.

And now it's all being dragged up again.

If you think that the women were wronged, then you're mistaken I'm afraid. This is one of the few cases I can think of where a man truly was framed for sexual assault. This was not a He said, She said case where the only witnesses to events were the alleged victim and the alleged perpetrator. This was a case where She said, and from a handful to a hundred other people were there and say what? That did not happen.

The worst accusation could have resulted in a prison sentence for Salmond. It was alleged he attempted to rape a woman after a dinner with him and another guest in Bute House, his official residence, with staff and security present. It was alleged that the victim had to fight him off so hard, she ended up with an injury to her arm.

Salmonds defence wasn't that he had mistakenly assumed she wanted it, or whatever else men usually say in this situation. It was that the attack could not have happened, because the woman had not been in Bute House. Her friend stated on the witness stand that said woman had contacted her before the dinner, because she had injured her arm earlier that day and could not now attend the dinner. Would the friend be so kind and attend in her stead? The friend said yes and attended the dinner in place of the alleged victim.

All of the records from that day (Bute House security entries and the kitchen records which note all dinner guests) confirmed that the alleged victim was not present but that the friend was there. Staff and security confirmed the presence of the friend and the absence of the alleged victim.

The public knows next to nothing about this, because the BBC day-by-day documentary about the Salmond trial left out days 8 to 10. Those are the days when Salmond presented his defence and when witnesses for the defence disproved the claims made by the prosecution. None of the mainstream media reported on the details of Salmond's defence. That is if they even bothered reporting the defence case at all. Mainstream media portrayed Salmond as guilty from the day the allegations were first made public and having refused to report the defence case allows them to do so to this day.

Rape Crisis Scotland played an insidious, damaging role in the whole affair and also continues to do so now. It has now been named in a court case brought by another independent journalist targeted by the Scottish Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for reporting Salmond's defence case (like Murray).

For us who were compelled to self-exclude from Rape Crisis Scotland services because it adamantly refuses to accept that female victims of male violence who ask for a female-only therapeutic environment are neither hateful nor bigoted nor prejudiced, misguided or transphobic this highly politicised public advocacy for the alleged victims in this case is hard to compute. Its management refused to listen to us when we told them of the harm their blanket trans inclusion policy and condemnation of our request for a female-only service do to traumatised survivors. It told us we had no legal right to even ask for a female-only service. That the human right of male transgender people to exercise and enjoy their full employment rights by working in Rape Crisis Scotland superseded our need for a female-only service. They refused all common sense suggestions made by us to reconcile their wish to include males on the basis of a verbal statement of identity with our need for a female-only service. We left that meeting knowing that they thought us not worth the tiniest effort to help. They even denied our existence publicly afterwards.

But to damage a former head of state they violated all rules that apply to those supporting victims during in sexual assault court cases. They went all out for these alleged victims by engaging in dubious behaviour at best. Because some women are worth it. And some are not.

Salmond was framed in a truly shocking and blatant manner. .... [And] anyone on Salmond's side is fair game. As Murray found out.

The Supreme Court unsurprisingly refused to allow Murray's appeal. If you know anything about the enmity that the UK establishment has expressed towards the former ambassador turned whistleblower about UK collusion with Uzbekistan's torture regime, that was a foregone conclusion.

Very disturbing points, Charley. This all needs more sunlight.

The Scottish Government is teflon-coated as of now, because sunlight cannot shine on any of this for as long as the UK Government considers Salmond a greater threat to the union than the current SNP government.

It will happen eventually, but the question is how much damage will be done to Scotland and its public institutions until then.

I do believe that the SNP will one day be studied by politics researchers, students and academics under the heading of how it can all go wrong when a party remains in power for too long.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. A principle currently being demonstrated in Scottish politics.