The Long Dark Night of the Soul 485


As many of you will already know, I was excluded from the public gallery of the Alex Salmond trial yesterday. Inside the High Court, in the queue to enter the courtroom, I was suddenly taken aside by the police and told I was barred. The prosecution had made an application to the judge for an order for my removal which the judge had agreed, over a “possible contempt of court.”

I asked the police – who were very pleasant – if they could tell me where the possible contempt lay, but they had no information. Later I phoned the court and was eventually phoned back by the clerk of the court, who was also very pleasant, but he could not tell me where the possible contempt lay either. He could however tell me I was excluded for the duration of the case, not just for the day.

I have to say that I find this process very unsatisfactory. To be excluded from a public trial on the basis of something I have “possibly” done, when nobody will even specify what it is I have “possibly” done, seems to me a very strange proceeding. I can only assume that it is something I have written on this blog as there has been no incident or disturbance of any kind inside the courtroom. But if the judge is genuinely concerned that something I have written is so wrong as to necessitate my exclusion, you would expect there would be a real desire for the court to ask me to amend or remove that wrong thing. But as nobody will even tell me what that wrong thing might “possibly” be, it seems only reasonable to conclude that they are not genuinely concerned, in a legal sense, about something I have written.

I will state openly that if the court asked me to remove or change anything I have written, I would certainly do that. But they have not asked me. They have just chucked me out without explanation. I do not find that satisfactory. It also seems to me very strange indeed, and quite contrary to natural justice, that the prosecution and the judge were formally discussing in secret a motion for my exclusion, while I was standing right outside their door. I was not given a hearing, allowed to be present, or even told it was happening. They knew I was there because the police then came straight to me. That seems to me contrary to all principles of natural justice. I am not a terrorist who needed to be secretly surveilled and dealt with in camera while excluded.

I do not doubt the judge may have the legal powers to do this. But the law is then wrong. Not to mention that this behaviour is extremely discourteous – she should at least have called me in and told me why. That would have taken a minute. And I then could also have removed any material she wished.

All of which – and the threat of prosecution for contempt which carries a maximum sentence of two years in jail – is very unpleasant. But what is far worse is the terrible feeling of helplessness that has resulted. I have scarcely slept at all this night, and it really was a dark night of the soul. Having seen the crushing power of the state operate against both Julian Assange and Alex Salmond in the last month has been dreadful. It is of course, at a philosophical level, the state’s use and abuse of its monopoly of violence, including the violent enforcement of deprivation of liberty. I am excluded from the court by the state’s monopoly of violence, as I would discover very soon if I attempted to re-enter. I find the violence of the state, and its enforcement by officialdom, a more brutal and horrible thing than personal violence, which I abhor. It has kept me awake, in a sea of desolation, to think that how Julian and Alex feel tonight must be a million times worse than I am feeling, which is bad enough.

But it is also the helplessness. In both the Assange and Salmond cases, I felt strongly that by bringing the full and detailed facts of the court proceedings into the light, I was at least doing something for truth and honesty. The detailed accounts I could write in each instance presented a picture that was entirely different to the selective and horribly skewed view of the proceedings being fed to the populace by the state and corporate media. Even if my accounts reached only a few thousand people, a world where a few thousand people know the truth is better than a world of absolute darkness, by a factor of infinity.

Being deprived of that ability at least to hold a little candle in the darkness, at least to bear quiet witness to the truth, has just left me also in darkness. That is where I have been all night, unsleeping, fevered and restless. And today I shall not be in court.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/03/your-man-finally-in-the-public-gallery-the-alex-salmond-trial-day-7/

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/03/your-man-finally-in-the-public-gallery-the-alex-salmond-trial-day-8/

With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible.

This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish, including in translation, and I very much hope people will do so actively. Truth shall set us free.

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485 thoughts on “The Long Dark Night of the Soul

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  • bj

    I am probably missing something when I note that in Julian Assange’s case the judge has no ‘jurisdiction’ over the courtroom (Serco has) whereas here the judge apparently does have that ‘jurisdiction’.

  • Jeff

    On day 8 within Geoff Aberdein’s testimony there’s someone’s name…..with no context of who it is….

  • Denton Scratch

    Contempt: there is a quote in the blog from a tweet by one of the “Letter Ladies”, that I googled, to see if it would turn up her twitter feed and expose her. It didn’t; I imagine you tested that before including that quote.

    But I doubt either the judge or the prosecution counsel tried that. They have enough to do. “He’s quoted from her twitter stream, and he COULD have exposed her, so that’s possible contempt. Kick him out in case he tries it again.”. If they think you may have committed a contempt, then it would be reckless to let you back in after a day’s exclusion; their main concern right now is the integrity of the court proceedings.

    If there had been real contempt, rather than “possible contempt”, I imagine you would have been hauled before the judge and charged on the spot. To be honest, I can see why they might think your blog is sailing rather close to the wind – they are not used to court reporting that is so detailed and careful.

    • Colm Herron

      Doctor K at 13.03

      This is beneath Kafka. A “possible contempt of court”? Give me a break. The plotters had no legal grounds for excluding you and they knew it. It’s easy for me to say now after the event, Craig, but you were fooled. You were so taken aback when the policemen told you about the non-existent exclusion order that you didn’t think of asking for their numbers. I wouldn’t have either. As for the clerk of the court, (s)he had been told to expect a phone call from you and was ready with the reply (s)he’d been ordered to give. The exclusion order isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

  • Denton Scratch

    From what you have published so far, It seems to me that the prosecution case is weak, and so are the prosecution witnesses. And it looks as if the defence have done a fairly good job of demolishing their credibility.

    It’s a crying shame that we can’t read about the rest of the defence. This is not just an attack on you, Craig; we have all been attacked.

    I understand that Edinburgh was strongly NO, so jurors would have been predisposed to convict. Having said that, I have a lot of confidence in juries; most jurors will come to a verdict based on weighing the evidence. Juries generally take their duty seriously. I think they will acquit.

    • Tom Welsh

      “I understand that Edinburgh was strongly NO, so jurors would have been predisposed to convict”.

      Gosh. If that is true, we really are lost.

  • Phil E

    The legality of the action against you is open to doubt. Is it possible the judge is not even aware of your treatment Craig? Someone had a word with a compliant copper, Special Branch for instance and you honestly believed what you were told. Did you get the names and numbers of the police officers? As others have said, it’s worth pushing this a bit further.

  • Martin Kernick

    At least, Craig, you can hold your head up and say that you have been faithful to your friends and to truth. Much love to you and well done!

  • J

    “Having seen the crushing power of the state operate against both Julian Assange and Alex Salmond in the last month has been dreadful. It is of course, at a philosophical level, the state’s use and abuse of its monopoly of violence, including the violent enforcement of deprivation of liberty.”

    I sincerely expect the state to become more crushing still, against many of us in the days to come. I’m not hysterical or particularly aroused by any emotion as I contemplate this, I am simply extrapolating from my memories of the last thirty or so years, the long chain of events to the current state of our, no longer even notional, democracy and specifically the provisions of the Coronavirus Bill. Among the powers the junta is currently seeking is the release of mobile telecom location data for all customers, in real time. Combine that with the sweeping powers of arrest granted. More here: https://twitter.com/BigBrotherWatch/status/1240720517650317321

    Consider the words of Milton Meyer from his book They Thought They Were Free.

    What no one seemed to notice,” said a colleague of mine, a philologist, “was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.
    What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
    This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
    You will understand me when I say that my Middle High German was my life. It was all I cared about. I was a scholar, a specialist. Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the university was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and, above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time.

    More here:
    https://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

    As one reads further it becomes difficult not to recognise that the neo-liberal project, as practiced in the former democracies of the west, was modelled on Nazi methodology all along. The temperature rises, literally and metaphorically, real and unreal melt together until alloyed, and all potential difference is ‘smoothed’ away.

    The economic collapse is no longer arriving, it unfolds swiftly before us, the billionaires and millionaires are fleeing to their bunkers, caves and bolt holes. Perhaps it is because of the power to ride out most storms that the present appears to them as another opportunity to consolidate. Perhaps they are in thrall to the generational propaganda of their ancestors. Whatever the reason, they seem oblivious to the depth of the chasm they’ve made for all of us. It would be comforting not to see the real, and not to see the trial of Alex Salmond as a small but important aspect of the same problem, but we have so little luxury left to afford.

  • Pete

    Well you’ve done everything you could to get the truth out. From what you have been able to publish I have certainly been able to draw my own conclusions, even though I’ve heard the whole prosecution case and only part of the defence.

  • Republicofscotland

    “The detailed accounts I could write in each instance presented a picture that was entirely different to the selective and horribly skewed view of the proceedings being fed to the populace by the state and corporate media.”

    Undoubtedly that is why you’ve found yourself turfed out on your ear, your fair and unbiased reports do not fit the narrative. The political and judicial arm of Scotland is I’m afraid as rotten as anywhere else.

  • BabsP

    Craig, you are a hero. I wonder if you realise how much your readers value your posts and the extraordinary efforts you go to to provide the truth in this age of propaganda. You have done amazing things. It is always a good day for me when I wake up to a new post from you. Always interesting, always insightful, always rooted in morality and integrity. I have cancelled my SNP membership – this whole thing is so distasteful I can’t accept it. I have set up a standing order to you instead and wish you health, strength and courage to continue to carry on with your work. Don’t let the b*** get you down.

  • Monster

    If Craig’s writings were contempt of court the prosecution could claim a mistrial, which would not be good for Alex, as it would give MI5 time to organise a tighter prosecition case, and perhaps rub out some of the more convincing defence witnesses. Still Lady Whatshername has a pension to look forward to, as well as the kudos for delivering the knockout blow to independence. I can see her point of view,

  • Blair Paterson

    Craig I am reminded of these old sayings: Shout out against unjustness, shout out loud, your head it may be bloodied but unbowed, and wear your scars like medals you won them in a noble cause.

    I say to you God bless you I thank you and salute you

  • SA

    Just correct me if I am wrong. Even if Craig did not commit any contempt of course if you have followed this blog you will find that many commenters have expressed for strong opinions about their thoughts of the guilt or not and the reliability or not of the accusers. Might this not be considered prejudicial?

    • Stonky

      It could be. But at the end of the day this blog reaches a few tens of thousands of people. Twitter reaches tens of millions, and it’s full of frightening levels of vitriol…

    • James

      SA – I don’t think so – much of what you see in this blog might come under the legal definition of `vulgar abuse’ which is allowed.

      If you write something along the lines of `the prosecution QC is a big jobby’ then that is vulgar abuse and is therefore OK. But if you go on to explain why you take this view, then you might be guilty of defamation – or something serious if you get your facts wrong.

      • SA

        But some of the commenters go to a vey detailed reason why they think the accused is being framed up and so on or that the accusers lack credibility because of this or that and it is an opinion that theoretically may influence the jury. Also whether this blog reaches 10,000 people or a million I think is beside the point but I take what Stonky says about vitriol. In fact the very forensic well argued discussions here are more likely to be influential than the silly vitriol in Twitter.

        • James

          true. There was lots of good information for Craig Murray, but perhaps the mods should have been quicker in removing some of it from public view. But I don’t think they were stating false facts – they were simply giving the sort of opinion that any ignorant layman with a reasonable capacity to think might come up with.

  • john dann

    Craig, As I have read your reporting of the Salmond trial from distant Vancouver, not knowing much of those involved, my overriding thought was that journalism is not dead, that here were you an articulate, intelligent individual doing the job of telling the public what happened. It was riveting, informative journalism. You were so good you had to be shut down. It is a very sobering reality that you could be imprisoned for speaking the unbiased truth. The UK justice system has been exposed in the last years as equally unjust as that of the US. These are very dark times. Your voice, courage and integrity are essential and important even to one so distant. Many thanks. John

  • Tony M

    The issue is that the court might well be, by the sound of it is, contemptible.

    The TV media nyaffs have sniffed the wind, and the foul stench from their own orifices and realised it is they who are in the dock of public opinion, and the shelves of the stores are almost quite out of metaphorical pitchforks soon heading their way. The Biased Broadcasting Corpse and STV, gave some of the day’s (I think) defence testimony an airing through gritted teeth. Carlisle-based Border news was cut down to just five minutes of their usual paint-drying tedium.

    The courts need a reminder they sit in judgement only with our – the people’s consent – which they have squandered and depleted, they are otherwise a paper-tiger, notwithstanding the silly rugs and Halloween costume clobber they favour. We can if we like put on our own show in the barn.

  • Hetty

    I hope you are OK Craig, look after yourself it’s what’s important right now,

    The whole world has gone more crazy than usual, or at least some parts of it, let’s hope that Alex Salmond is given a fair trial for what is remaining of it. We are I hope still at the ‘innocent before guilty’ stage, in the minds of any decent person.

  • Doctor K

    I thought it strange that the state did not intervene to block Craig from the Assange trial by the simple expedient of loading the queue early with stooges. While that did not happen then, they are not making the same mistake twice.

  • pete

    I assume Craig has been banned because of his counter-narrative, he has observed that the emperor is naked, no wonder his freedom and our conduit to his perspective has been choked off. Nevertheless the outcome of the trial looks inevitable, if the verdict is anything other that not guilty it will be because of a fix; no accusation that has appeared so far could possibly pass a credibility test to an intelligent mind.

  • Doug

    A worrying development. The establishment is obviously concerned that your reporting of this trial is far and away the most informative and intelligent reporting there is. For what it’s worth I think those responsible are just behaving childishly and have no intention of prosecuting you. Your feeling of helplessness is understandable but perhaps you can take heart from the fact that you have many supporters and admirers out there in the webosphere who are with you 100% in your determination to find and report the truth.

  • Shardlake

    It’s truly despicable that Mr Murray has been treated this way so that the readers of this site are deprived of his first hand reporting. Reading the accounts he has produced for us so far on this court case as opposed to the MSM whose reports dwell solely on the Prosecution and which omit Defence counter-argument leave me in little doubt there is an agenda going on to feed the public at large with a not entirely balanced view of things. Earlier in these proceedings I formed the impression that Mr Salmond might not facing the same type of Judge that Mr Assange had been saddled with – now I’m not so sure. At least Mr Salmond has a modicum of comfort that his fate will be decided by a jury, unlike Mr Assange. I’ve sat on a jury only once where we acquitted the defendant on a serious assault charge which would have carried a custodial sentence. In truth, the case never should have been brought to court as when all the facts were laid out by both prosecution and defence counsels it was plain there was no case to answer. I like to think the jury will be in a better position to find for Mr Salmond and disregard (as they should) what I can only interpret is being ‘pushed’ in MSM and by those who wish him ill.

  • Jimuckmac

    I have phoned the High Court in Edinburgh seeking to speak to Lady Dorian in regards to her ruling yesterday to bar Craig Murray from yesterday’s proceedings.
    I spoke to a very pleasant, helpful individual within the court, who advised me to put my request in writing to…
    [email protected]
    I would advise others to do the same to see if that ruling actually exists.
    You cannot make a judicial ruling on the ‘possibility’ of something.

  • william stone

    thanks craig murray only real journalist reporting on alex salmonds trial in or out court in my opinion

  • Giyane

    If I may be so bold as to display my ignorance of Scottish politics, it does seem to me that if the SNP is completely compromised by its present first minister ‘s big mistake of becoming a friend of the neocons , she has made a fatal mistake in participating with this state demolition job of Alex Salmond.

    The Independence movement is not tied to the British validation process through Westminster run elections and MPs.

    Nor do I think us English are tied to the rigged xmas election of a Tory government. Are we going to listen to a mop head pair of bumcheeks who says the virus will be over in 12 weeks, only to be contradicted 2 hours later by Sage, a government Thinktank which says 40 weeks?
    The man is disconnected from reality, other than the reality of his teenage delusion of becoming world king.

    The truth is that a politician like Nicola Sturgeon can not take power from either the neo con Tory mafia in London or the dirty tricks of MI5 and deep state. Her only mandate is from the Scottish people who she is trying to cheat through this court case.

    At the end of the day the SNP has only to pass a vote of no confidence in Sturgeon because of her corrupt treatment of her predecessor, and she is sacked. Who the hell does she think she is, colluding with the enemies of Independence to slander the last holder of high office.

    The point is that Britain is constitutionally opposed to the break up of the Union, so its authority cannot legally be invoked against Salmond, just as Trump cannot be impeached.
    The sexual accusations are salivating , empty trash

    • Giyane

      For example, the leaders of the PKK and of South Africa, spent many years in prison, because of the independence caused they espoused. Nicola Sturgeon is only a government stooge who has been groomed politically to block independence.

      • Dundee Duffer

        I cant understand why the SNP don’t take seats in the House of Lords, but happily take seats on the Privy Council. Something stinks to the high heavens.

    • Tom Welsh

      “…it does seem to me that if the SNP is completely compromised by its present first minister ‘s big mistake of becoming a friend of the neocons…”

      Sadly, it is usually true that politics is the art of the possible. Perhaps a Scots politician faces a hopeless dilemma: either suck up to the powers that be in the hope of getting some crumbs from their table; or stay resolutely independent and virtuous… and accomplish nothing.

      • Giyane

        Tom Welsh

        ” suck up to the powers that be ”

        Did Alistair Campbell do anything but heap opprobrium on this country for poodling to Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq? So Nicoka Sturgeon sucking up to the big pimp basically tells the powers that be ‘ I am available “.
        That information only tells me that if Johnson declares war on Iran or Syria, Sturgeon will sign immediately in favour. Who’s doing the tarting? Salmond or Sturgeon?

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Craig,

    You should be very proud of yourself, with regards to what you have done, especially this year. Whilst I disagree with some of your political views, I have never doubted your honesty and integrity.

    Keep the light shining, but take it easy for awhile.

    The stress is far more dangerous, than batty flu.

    Whilst its energising for awhile, and can keep you going, when it is very important to keep going, no-one can take stress for too long. Switch off and chill for a bit. You may find you get ill for awhile but that is just your body and mind recharging, and recovering for the work you will need to do in the future.

    Tony

  • Nick

    Your reports of the JA & AS trials are invaluable. £50 donated (I wish it could be more).

  • richard minle

    i wish i was i a position to donate to your good cause iv like the fact that you hit the nail on the head and no gobelygook to the point . you are one of the few good guys in the world today

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