THE Craig Murray Justice Group would like to draw readers’ attention to some key further points following The National’s coverage of our request to Keith Brown to release Craig Murray from prison with immediate effect on compassionate grounds (Call for Craig Murray’s release amid fears Covid threatens his life, October 15).
Our request came following our discovery of a Covid-19 outbreak on Craig’s corridor at HMP Edinburgh and our fear that Craig, who has serious underlying heart and lung conditions, was particularly susceptible to life-threatening complications were he to catch Covid-19 in prison.
It is worth underlining that Craig was denied community service on the grounds of his ill-health and it is staggering that he should remain in prison during a Covid-19 outbreak.
The National article did not cover the serious anomalies in Scots law which we raised in our letters to Keith Brown of September 1, 2021, and October 15, 2021. Here we highlighted that, “civil prisoners are treated more punitively than criminal prisoners” and that as Justice Secretary, he should rectify this “problematic inequality of treatment and opportunity” in Scots law by passing emergency subordinate legislation.
As a civil prisoner, Craig is not eligible for early release from prison “on tag” after serving a quarter of his sentence. He is also not covered by the 2019 order that presumed against the handing out of custodial sentences of less than a year.
Had Craig been a criminal (and not a civil) prisoner, he would certainly have already been released from prison “on tag” weeks ago, and most likely would not have been imprisoned in the first place.
Whilst we are certain that Keith Brown and the Scottish Government have been aware since September 1, 2021, that it is completely within their gift to rectify this inequality under the law, their response (October 15) was, “The decision of the independent court is not something the Scottish Government can comment on nor intervene with”.
The only conclusion we can draw from this, and the absence of a substantive response to the points raised in our September 1 letter, is that Keith Brown and the Scottish Government have chosen delay and obfuscation rather than to take action. To not rectify an inequality in law when it has been highlighted suggests that there are deeper issues at the heart of Scottish Government. Their inaction and blindness to the issues at hand of course ensures that Craig Murray serves as much prison time as possible. We will leave it to you to draw your conclusions as to why this might be the case.
No doubt Craig’s lawyers will add this to the lengthy list of legal points to be raised at the European Court of Human Rights.
Craig is the first journalist to be imprisoned in Scotland for media contempt for 70 years and the first (and only) person to be imprisoned for “jigsaw identification”. It is worth saying, that Craig is still none the wiser as to who it was that he was supposed to have identified and with what information. The fact that Craig is also serving his sentence whilst being denied bail as his appeal is heard by the higher courts is surely to Scotland’s shame.
Craig remains Scotland’s Prisoner of Conscience and we repeat our request to Scottish Government to “Free the Jigsaw One”.
Donald M Blair, international government and public affairs consultant; Ailsa Gray, lawyer; Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver, programme director, Henley Business School, University of Reading
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