A FORMER diplomat was sentenced to eight months in jail for contempt of court yesterday over his coverage of the Alex Salmond trial.

Craig Murray watched two days of the former first minister’s trial at Edinburgh’s High Court in March 2020 and wrote about it on his website.

Judges subsequently ruled that Mr Murray, 62, was in contempt of court, relating to material capable of identifying four complainers.

Sentencing the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Lady Dorrian said that Mr Murray knew there were court orders giving the women anonymity.

At the virtual sentencing, Lord Justice Clerk Lady Dorrian explained that Mr Murray deliberately risked jigsaw identification, which is when two or more pieces of information are disclosed in order to identify an individual. 

Mr Murray’s lawyer Roddy Dunlop said that he was a man of “impeccable character.”

Mr Murray has maintained he is being politically persecuted, including for his support for jailed journalist Julian Assange.

His lawyer pointed out that when he was contacted about his first article the Crown did not ask him to remove it, and that his blog was less likely responsible for revealing identities than mainstream papers which had not been challenged.

He has now been given three weeks to surrender himself so that he can appeal the sentence, although he has to surrender his passport.