Craig Murray Defence Appeal Renewed 139


UPDATE

My new appeal for funds to continue my legal defence has now reached £42,300 of the £75,000 target. I am extremely grateful to all of the 2,053 people who have so far contributed to the top-up. The moral support from those who cannot afford to contribute is also very greatly appreciated. That is now £117,300 of the £150,000 needed in total.

I have today received a bill from my legal team for £60,563.40 in fees to date in defending the contempt of court charge against me for my reporting of the Alex Salmond trial.

In addition to this, I have paid a separate legal fee for a QC to draft a petition for a court to consider whether the accusers’ anonymity should be continued by the courts, given their continued participation in a high intensity public campaign against Alex Salmond and effectively against the verdict of the jury. I have also paid to commission the Panelbase poll proving that my blog was in no way a primary source of information for those who believe they have identified accusers.

In total to date £69,052 has been spent. Which means about £5,000 remains in the pot, and the main trial itself is currently scheduled for 21 January.

The Crown has adopted a policy of simply blocking everything the defence seeks to do: objecting to my witnesses, objecting to my own affidavit, objecting to the release of documentary evidence. In consequence there have been three preliminary hearings. Those who listened to last week’s hearing will know that these have resolved none of the questions at issue. The Crown constantly shifts its ground, or submits draft positions, and has not yet clarified the evidential basis for its charges, while blocking my evidence. They have objected to all of my witnesses being heard, and to the opinion poll being considered.

This has the appearance of what is known in the US as “Lawfare”. My financial resources are drained and there is a huge impact on me in terms of my time taken up – frankly very much worse than I anticipated – and an emotional strain too.

As a reminder, this is the list of documents from the Salmond case disclosure my which defence is seeking to access, and which the Crown is refusing to release.

To be plain, this is material which I know for certain to exist. I am not fishing. The Crown has admitted its existence in forbidding Alex Salmond’s own solicitors from releasing it to anybody, (including Alex). Much of this was kept out of the Salmond trial itself as “collateral evidence”, as I explained here.

The most likely next court hearing is to request the Court orders the Crown to produce this material. In effect, each court hearing costs about £20,000 in legal fees. It is now plain that I need at least double the £75,000 originally raised to get me through the trial. I am really very sorry to have to ask again, but I therefore need to request further contributions to my defence fund at this point.

I am deeply conscious that, the legal battle having caused my blogging output and depth of research to fall these last few weeks, there has been a drop-off in readership and in subscriptions, so I am handicapped in making this appeal precisely by the very legal battle I am appealing to try to fight. I also do realise these are hard times for people. I do not want anyone to give anything if it causes them even the slightest hardship.

I will post updates on progress from this renewed funding appeal. I have asked the lawyers to produce a version of their fee note which can be published.




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MURRAY CJ
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139 thoughts on “Craig Murray Defence Appeal Renewed

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  • Jon+Musgrave

    Donation added to your bank account, sorry not more, but finances not as good as sometimes recently 🙂

  • James

    Dear Craig, as an admirer of your work and support for Julian, I am glad to have just donated 500. I hope your own case improves, rotten bastards. Do you have an account for Crowd Funding (gofundme) or similar as I would like to promote that on social media. Kindest regards, Jamie

  • Ingwe

    Donated. As is clear from your post, the court hasn’t yet considered the Crown’s refusal to provide the disclosure requested by your solicitors. I would have thought at the last procedural hearing, the Crown’s refusal would have been raised. Anyway, good luck in that application.

    The Crown can’t have it both ways. It’s either irrelevant as alleged by them in which case, why not disclose it. Or it is relevant and therefore should be before the court.

  • John O'Dowd

    Donation made. If you need any more, do not hesitate.

    This is an attack on freedom by an increasingly authoritarian state – and a Crown Office which is evidently accountable to no-one but its pompous illiberal senior beneficiaries. They are playing a dangerous game.

    Deeply shaming for Scotland.

  • Bill Irving

    Sorry to hear of the huge financial legal costs.
    I hope you raise the sums required and are able to keep up your excellent blogs.
    I wish you the very best of luck and hope you keep well!

  • Rhys Jaggar

    Donation made – by the way, it was not obvious that if you already have a Paypal account, you should click ‘Donate’, not ‘Donate using a card’. If you do the latter, they try and set you up with a new Paypal account, which is a bit silly when I already have one. So I went back and started again. It would be helpful if Paypal said: ‘Donate using Paypal account’ as that is pretty obvious.

    I do hope if you win that you are awarded full costs: it really hacks me off the way governments deliberately inflate legal costs to try and bankrupt honest and innocent-until-proven-guilty members of the public.

  • Peter N

    Cripes, the courts really do bleed you dry.

    I’ll donate on Friday once my pension is paid. Hope the new plea for help goes well.

    Don’t let the ‘b’s’ wear you down, as they say.

  • Neil

    Donated (via bank a/c) with the reference “NEIL – LEGAL FUND”. Will send the same again in a few weeks’ time if you still need more.

    It’s the least I can do. You deserve all the support you get.

    P.S. I am not the “Neil” who posted today at 15:24, but I agree wholeheartedly with his comment.

  • GoodMorningJudge

    Another donation made and more to follow if required, let’s bleed the buggers dry!

  • Tom

    The Scotsman (4 June 2020) – Alex Salmond affair starting to look like an abuse of power: The actions of the authorities after Alex Salmond was acquitted of sexual allegations raise serious questions, writes Kenny MacAskill, SNP MP for East Lothian:

    “nine people, as at 29 May, had been spoken to by Police Scotland, on the direct instructions of the Crown Office, pertaining to publications during and after the case. What of it you might say? Well firstly, why no actions in those flagrant breaches above or don’t they matter?
    Secondly, it’s hardly the norm. It’s almost twice as many as for all other cases so far this year, where there’s only been another five. It’s hardly a common occurrence either as nine is greater than the number spoken to in all bar one year since 2015. Indeed in 2017 only one case was recorded.
    There’s also the issue of contempt of court cases that have been brought, which is the charge facing the former Ambassador Craig Murray. I asked the Crown how many such cases, relating to publication or disclosure of proceedings, had been brought on an annual basis since 1999. Not hard you might have thought, they’d be few and the Crown keep meticulous records, as we’ve seen.
     
    But apparently not. The response was they “do not keep” them. Yet, surprisingly, the same information’s readily available in England and Wales, and a matter of public record. Numbers there were limited, and Scotland could expect to have far less even than its Barnett share. Given that I’m led to believe that it may not even be a handful here, you’d have thought they’d know or as I’ve suggested in a reply to them that it’ll be within the organisation’s collective memory.”

    Interesting read ?
    https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/alex-salmond-affair-starting-look-abuse-power-kenny-macaskill-2873789

  • Zarayna Pradyer

    Please accept my sympathies (and anger) at the predicament you find yourself
    You seem to suffer from the two ‘I’s – intelligence and integrity.
    Unfortunately, Fortuna has spun her wheel, and those qualities are no longer recognised – or, even if they are, they are regarded as alien and therefore dangerous.
    Every dog has its day, its time in the sun, and now it’s the turn of the ignorant, the barbarian and the dim (i.e. those third-raters encysted within a self-serving platform and imagining their innate qualities are responsible for their elevation).
    I sincerely hope others can donate more than I but, in the interim, please accept my thanks for all of your excellent research and my wishes for a just outcome.

  • Cascadian

    Donated. Not a lot, but I can repeat ad nauseum, at suitable intervals, if required.

    It’s depressing – I sometimes wish that I could be as ignorant now as I was at 17 years old. It was bliss to be totally unaware of the evil in control of this world.

    I wish you luck. I’ve a feeling that you will need a lot of it.

  • Laguerre

    Keep us up to date, Craig. If only 5K remains in the pot, do you have an estimate of the likely costs until trial? I wouldn’t like the case to fail for lack of resources.

  • Annan

    Contribution on its way.

    Anyone who has not spotted that lawfare, either the state-sanctioned criminal variety or in the form of SLAPP suits ostensibly for libel, has not been paying attention. Social media is a threat to the state propaganda engine so it must be castrated. Currently the legal system appears increasingly disreputable in consequence of an apparent collective effort to prevent free speech. In another recent case, two wealthy celebs tried to hang someone out to dry for posting a retweet without comment to a link that referenced a critical 3rd-party article. The tactic is simply to bankrupt the defendant before the matter can reach trial.

    This is rapidly becoming ‘free speech for the wealthy and government, not for the public’. It cannot continue. We urgently need a shakeup of the arbitrary contempt powers of the judiciary and effective anti-SLAPP legislation.

  • shugsrug

    Although I have made a contribution, I will if needed add to this to enable you to defend yourself. I’m sure many other followers will feel the same.

  • John Welch

    What a stitch up. What a bloody disgrace. I’ve sent a small donation via Paypal of £10. Wish it could be more but my finances are rather strained too.

    I noticed that Paypal asks if you want the recipient to see your address. I thought it might be an email address to which you could set up an automated reply. But it turns out to be a postal address. Craig, if that means you have to write a reply and then pay for postage, don’t bother. Your time and money can be put to better use.

    Good luck!

  • Keith

    Your need (and so many others need) to crowdfund or beg/borrow to defend against action bought by the “Crown/State” is sadly indicative of the need in any decent society governed by rule of law to provide matching funds for the defence against any action brought by the “Crown/State”. Otherwise, as is increasingly being seen in the UK, the “Crown/State” becomes a de-facto legal dictatorship as it has near unlimited resources to stamp out any dissent which it deems unwanted or a nuisance. Legal Aid is a farce and non-existent for most citizens, if the “Crown/State” is so confident of its case then it should be willing to fund the defence to the same level of the prosecution by providing a fully state backed National Legal Service (NLS). For those that can afford to “go private” this will still be an option, but for most it will never be the case.

  • Shane

    Donated From Canada. Don’t hesitate to ask again when funds are running low.
    The world is watching. Good luck Craig.

  • Jon

    I wish you luck with your renewed appeal. While undoubtedly people seem to be willing to pay into PayPal, would there be value in using a platform where people can see their amount make a difference, and so people can be sure their monies won’t disappear? The platform that Assange’s family uses looks quite good, and is specifically for legal matters:

    https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/julianassange/

    They charge 3% of funds raised.

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