63 Facts About Craig Murray

Craig John Murray was born on 17 October 1958 and is a Scottish author, human rights campaigner, journalist, and former diplomat.

Specifically, Murray lodged formal written complaints to his superiors stating that it was morally and legally wrong to obtain intelligence under torture and that intelligence received by the Secret Intelligence Service from the Uzbek government was unreliable because it had been obtained through torture.

Craig Murray's books include two memoirs, first about his time in Central Asia, Murder in Samarkand, and then The Catholic Orangemen of Togo: and other Conflicts I Have Known, about his early career years in West Africa; and a historical biography, Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game, about Alexander Burnes and the rivalry between the 19th century British and Russian Empires over influence in Asia.

Craig Murray became President of the East Anglian Federation of Young Liberals.

At the University of Dundee, to which, Craig Murray said, he barely gained admission to read Modern History, he "made a policy decision not to attend any lectures".

Craig Murray remained active in Liberal then Liberal Democrat politics, serving on the Students' Representative Council as an avowed liberal.

Craig Murray became President of Dundee University Students' Association, elected to this sabbatical office twice, an occurrence so unusual that the university court changed the rules to prevent him running a third time.

Craig Murray spent seven years in total at the university, he had to re-sit one year for not attending tutorials, compared to a normal four years for a Scottish first degree.

Craig Murray sat the 1984 Civil Service Open Competition exams in his second year as the Students' Association President because a woman he was interested in was sitting them, although he had no interest in entering the civil service.

Craig Murray had a number of overseas postings with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to Nigeria, Poland and Ghana.

Craig Murray's group gave daily reports to Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Craig Murray was appointed ambassador to Uzbekistan, at the age of 43, where he was formally in office from August 2002 to October 2004, when he was dismissed.

Craig Murray told Nick Paton Walsh, then with The Guardian, in July 2004 that "there is no point in having cocktail-party relationships with a fascist regime".

Craig Murray said in his speech that the boiling to death of two men was "not an isolated incident".

Craig Murray believed the human rights abuses in Uzbekistan were worse than in Iraq in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, but that the latter was being invaded while the government of the former was being supported.

Craig Murray wrote that "[t]orture dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe".

Craig Murray later wrote in The Washington Post, that the material from the CIA "revealed the same pattern of information" as the "forced confessions" of which he had become aware.

Some embassy staff were sacked in July 2003 while Craig Murray was away on holiday.

Craig Murray was confronted with 18 charges on 21 August 2003.

Representatives of the US embassy in Tashkent and the British Foreign Office later denied the American government had any involvement in Craig Murray being recalled to London.

Craig Murray collapsed during a medical check in Tashkent on 2 September 2003 and was airlifted to St Thomas' Hospital in London.

Craig Murray was treated in hospital for depression having seriously considered taking his own life.

Only a few days after his return to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray suffered another health crisis and was again flown back to London for medical treatment for what turned out to have been a near-fatal pulmonary embolism on a lung.

One of the co-signers of the letter said there was a "common belief that Mr Craig Murray is being sacrificed to the Americans".

Craig Murray's stance was supported by Clare Short, then a former Secretary of State for International Development, and Daniel Hannan, the Conservative Member of the European Parliament.

Craig Murray was removed from his post in October 2004, shortly after the Financial Times leak which, Craig Murray later told Amy Goodman, he thought had been leaked by the British government to incriminate him.

The FCO denied any direct connection and stated that Craig Murray had been suspended for disciplinary reasons after he gave a series of media interviews criticising the FCO.

Craig Murray was suspended, amid claims that he had lost the confidence of senior officials and colleagues.

In February 2005, Craig Murray took a severance package from the FCO, most of which was used to pay tax and fund his divorce.

In September 2007, shortly after Alisher Usmanov's investment in Arsenal Football Club, Craig Murray blogged about the character of Usmanov, a Russian multi-billionaire whom Forbes magazine had identified as the 142nd wealthiest person in the world.

Craig Murray had written two "quite highly classified" telegrams about Usmanov's influence and commercial dealings to the Foreign Office in 2002 and 2004 while he was ambassador in Uzbekistan Usmanov's solicitors, Schillings, requested that the hosting company Fasthosts delete the material from Craig Murray's blog.

An attempt to release the Foreign Office documents, including Craig Murray's telegrams, was made by Jeremy Corbyn, then a backbench Labour MP, in whose constituency Arsenal is based.

Craig Murray was elected to the position of Rector of the University of Dundee, his alma mater, on 16 February 2007.

Craig Murray opposed the cuts to University departments and services which were proposed.

Craig Murray remained a member of the Liberal Democrats until 2005.

Craig Murray twice stood for election to the House of Commons.

Craig Murray polled 2,082 votes and came fifth out of seven candidates.

Craig Murray polled 953 votes, which placed him sixth out of the twelve candidates.

Craig Murray rejoined the Liberal Democrats, according to his blog entry on 22 March 2010.

Craig Murray supported the "Yes" campaign in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

Craig Murray questioned the official UK government account of the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, March 2018, writing on his blog that Israeli security services were more likely to be behind the poisoning than Russia and that, while Russia lacked a motive, "Israel has a clear motivation for damaging the Russian reputation".

Craig Murray, who had visited the former chemical site at Nukus, Uzbekistan, where novichok was manufactured, stated that Russia's stocks had been dismantled with US assistance.

Craig Murray said "anyone who expresses scepticism" about Russian involvement in the poisoning "is seen as an enemy of the state".

In September 2018, Craig Murray claimed in a blog post that the photos issued by the Metropolitan Police of the suspects in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal were "impossible" because they depicted the two suspects at the same place at the same time.

Craig Murray retracted his claim, corrected his post and added a note that "it is good to acknowledge mistakes".

In December 2016, The Guardian and Daily Mail reported that Craig Murray said that the leak of Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign emails before the US 2016 presidential election was the work of a DNC insider.

Craig Murray told the Daily Mail that in September 2016 he had met the leaker, who was handing off the documents on behalf of someone with "legal access" to both the DNC and Podesta emails.

Craig Murray was one of few people granted access to Julian Assange's extradition hearing which started in the Old Bailey on 7 September 2020.

Craig Murray published detailed reports of each day's proceedings on his website.

Craig Murray was invited to Assange and Stella Moris' wedding at Belmarsh Prison in March 2022.

The UK Ministry of Justice said it had barred Craig Murray from attending due to security concerns.

Craig Murray attended two days of Alex Salmond's trial in 2020 and wrote about the court proceedings on his blog and on Twitter.

In March 2021, she found Craig Murray to be in contempt of court after he published information that in her view could potentially lead to identifying some of the complainants, and sentenced him to eight months' imprisonment.

Craig Murray appealed directly to the Supreme Court but his application was refused on 29 July 2021.

Craig Murray announced that he would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights and surrendered himself to the police on 1 August 2021.

Alba Party MP Kenny MacAskill called Craig Murray's sentencing "vindictive and a sad day for Scottish justice".

Craig Murray was released on 30 November 2021, after serving half of his eight month sentence.

Craig Murray married his first wife, Fiona Ann Kennedy, in 1984.

Craig Murray married Nadira Alieva, an Uzbek woman, on 6 May 2009.

In December 2005, Craig Murray published confidential memos on his website, which had been officially removed from the text when Murder in Samarkand was submitted for checking.

Craig Murray has turned down three honours from Queen Elizabeth, saying letters after his name are "not his thing".

Craig Murray's life featured in a show by Nadira Alieva, The British Ambassador's Bellydancer, initially presented in 2007 at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney, later moving to London's West End.

The play, with David Tennant portraying Craig Murray, was nominated for best drama at the Sony Radio Academy Awards 2011 and had positive reviews.