CRAIG Murray, the independence blogger and former diplomat, has been refused leave to appeal against his contempt of court conviction to the UK Supreme Court (UKSC).
The decision was announced at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday, but Murray was granted a further four-week suspension of an eight-month jail sentence to allow him to appeal directly to the Supreme Court.
The 62-year-old former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for his coverage of Alex Salmond’s trial in March last year. He had watched the trial from the public gallery of the court for two days and wrote reports about the case on his blog.
Judges, however, ruled he was in contempt of court because there was a risk of jigsaw identification of four complainers.
At a High Court hearing on Monday, Roddy Dunlop QC, Murray’s lawyer, argued he should be granted permission to appeal to the UK’s highest court against verdict and sentence.
READ MORE: Court urged not to hand Craig Murray ‘deliberate death sentence’ of jail time
He said some people had suggested that the proceedings were “politically motivated”. Dunlop said he did not make this submission himself but “the fact remains these views are out there”.
Lady Dorrian, along with Lords Menzies and Turnbull, issued a written decision yesterday, which said that Murray had a “genuinely held belief that the prosecution of the former first minister was unwarranted”.
She said Murray had also inferred that the sanction made against him prevented discussion of this.
Dorrian said this was not a “tenable argument”, adding: “It is the repeated publication of material likely to lead to identification of complainers in the face of a clear order of the court prohibiting that which drew the sanction.”
“The order did not prevent discussion of whether the prosecution was objectively justified. The applicant remains free to pursue discussion of that issue, as long as the anonymity of the complainers is respected.”
She said the High Court would refuse his application to appeal against the finding of contempt of court. The decision added: “We understand that it is the applicant’s intention to seek to apply for leave directly to the UKSC. In the circumstances we will suspend the warrant for a further four weeks.”
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