Wings Over Scotland

Her Majesty’s Prisoner No. 157095, or Craig Murray as we still prefer to call him, is a fascinating piece of living evidence of the Kafkaesque country Scotland has become under the despotic rule of Nicola Sturgeon.

Craig has a number of serious medical conditions, one of which causes him frequent dizziness and fainting spells. To gauge their severity (because obviously it’s hard for Craig to judge, given that he’s dizzy and/or fainting at the time), his doctor gave him a device called a pulse oximeter. Depending on the readings from it after an attack, Craig’s life could be in danger and an ambulance should be called.

HMP Edinburgh, however, confiscated the device when he was taken into custody, on the grounds that it uses batteries and batteries could be used for some unspecified nefarious purpose in prison. (Presumably in the rare moments when Craig isn’t getting high from smoking drug-soaked books or running an illegal-postage-stamp empire.)

But because presumably even the Scottish prison authorities realise that it would look quite bad if a political prisoner like Craig died in jail, they did offer him an alternative.

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An ongoing exception to this site’s retirement is for news relating to the scandalous imprisonment of journalist and former UK ambassador Craig Murray, the only human in the history of the planet Earth ever to be jailed for the barely-defined pseudo-crime of “jigsaw identification”.

We had another phone call from Craig in HMP Edinburgh yesterday, and he continues to be in good spirits and be well treated by both staff and fellow inmates. He expressed great gratitude for the flood of mail sent by Wings readers in response to our appeal a couple of weeks ago – he’s been receiving up to 60 letters, emails and packages a day, which have been very much appreciated in helping him pass the 22.5 hours out of every 24 that he spends locked alone in his cell.

The prison authorities, however, imposed some bizarre restrictions.

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Our cartoonist is still on holiday, but he’d never have beaten this for a joke anyway.

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Slacky The Holiday Boy is once again on his monthly two-week break, so it falls to us to try to amuse you on a Saturday morning with an image of some sort. Unfortunately very little funny is happening in Scottish politics, so all we’ve got is this.

Yes, the two most popular politics websites in Scotland at the moment are one that’s been retired for three months and one whose author is currently in prison. All hail that new media, eh?

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We had a phonecall this morning from HMP Edinburgh, asking us to briefly relapse our retirement again to put out a request on behalf of Prisoner 157095 – better known to you and us as our friend Craig Murray, the only person on the planet to now or ever have been imprisoned for the undefined and extremely selectively prosecuted pseudo-crime of “jigsaw identification”.

Craig is doing okay a week and a half into his eight-month sentence in Saughton and is being treated well by both staff and inmates, but was recently informed that he is not eligible for early release on an electronic tag (which might have seen him out by the end of next month) because he’s a civil prisoner rather than a criminal one.

Ironically, if he’d murdered, beaten or raped someone he WOULD have been eligible for early liberty under the scheme, but because he’s a frail elderly man in jail for a non-violent quasi-crime and represents no possible earthly menace to anyone, he’ll be locked up for months longer.

What Craig IS finding difficult is being locked up alone in a 12′-by-8′ cell for 22.5 hours a day with very little to do, and he would greatly appreciate if people could take a moment or two to write to him. Letters or cards can be sent by the traditional paper-and-pen method via this address:

157095 C Murray
G3/34 HM Prison Edinburgh
33 Stenhouse Road
Edinburgh
EH11 3LN

Alternatively you can email him via the officially-sanctioned Email A Prisoner service. This costs 40p per message, but Craig can reply and video chats are even possible (although sending photo attachments is NOT allowed at HMP Edinburgh).

Please find the time to do this if you can, readers. Don’t just think about it, actually do it, even if it’s just a card. It’s only a few minutes out of your day, but it would mean a lot to a man for who that time passes much more slowly.

Craig Murray, a former ambassador to Uzbekistan, the father of a newborn child, a man in very poor health and one who has no prior convictions, handed himself over to the Scottish police last Sunday morning. He becomes the first person ever to be imprisoned on the obscure and vaguely defined charge of “jigsaw identification”.

Murray is also the first person to be jailed in Britain for contempt of court for their journalism in half a century – a period when such different legal and moral values prevailed that the British establishment had only just ended the prosecution of “homosexuals” and the jailing of women for having abortions.

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We accidentally de-retired for a week last week because the outrage of Craig Murray’s imprisonment couldn’t be allowed to go unremarked. But we’re shutting back down again now, so here’s a fun challenge to occupy yourselves with in what’s left of what’s passed for the summer.

Because the feat described in that picture isn’t an easy one.

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