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Comment by metalliqaz | Hacker News Reader

Quoted from the article: “I genuinely do not know who I am supposed to have identified or which phrases I published are said to have identified them, in combination with [details] in the public domain.”

This sounds really bad, until you see that the court did point to specific blog posts. His position apparently hinges on the fact that specific phrases were not picked out from a handful of blog posts. It seems to me that the relevant facts that were revealed could be enumerated quite easily from that list of blog posts.

Victims are protected for a reason. This guy seems like a bit of a bastard.

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Do you have some examples to share? My first thought reading this was, similar to what you say, "this sounds really bad," and my inclination here is to side with Craig Murray. At the same time, the article linked by OP doesn't point to any sort of court ruling or proceedings where the reader might be able to check against the claims being made that the trial was, indeed, Kafkaesque. This obviously raises some suspicions.

I guess we're unlikely to see the forbidden phrases Murray dared to utter, since after all they're forbidden and few HN commentators want to go to prison.

This is handwaving snark and dismissiveness. It's not a very helpful reply. Indeed, another posted linked to the actual court ruling, which does indeed point to the offending articles. It makes the claims of a Kafkaesque trial sound dramatically overblown.

So... the court claims for itself the right to "harm" these people in the same way for which it chose to imprison Murray? I'm sure I'll never understand this.

Come again?

If he publishes an article telling their job, age, etc, and the court publishes a judgement saying that "he published an article telling their job, age, etc", then you can figure out who they are from his article, but not from the court's judgement.

I'm sure I'll never understand how this is "the court claim[ing] for itself the right to "harm" these people in the same way for which it chose to imprison Murray."

Of course that's not what happened. All these vague details were matters for a trial in criminal court, which trial was described by a higher court as "unlawful", "procedurally unfair", and "tainted by apparent bias". Reporting such matters to the public is not a crime in a civilized jurisdiction.

> I guess we're unlikely to see the forbidden phrases Murray dared to utter, since after all they're forbidden and few HN commentators want to go to prison.

As far as I know, most HN commentators are 1) American, 2) pseudonymous, 3) and unlikely to be extradited because I doubt these kinds of laws would be constitutional in the US.

Haha yeah the extradition rules are hardly symmetric are they? How the mighty empire has fallen...

Aren't they though? It's just one of the requirements is the conduct would have to be a crime in both countries? It's not like extradition is "you give us everyone we want, and we'll give you everyone you want."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93US_extradition_trea...

The US can extradite UK citizens for US crimes committed in the UK, but not vice-versa.

The judgement is here, page 36 onwards lays out all the articles the petitioner claims had contempt of court, and the courts interpretation of whether they did or didn't

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-genera...

Thank you. His claims of a Kafkaesque trial don't sound very well founded when I read this ruling.

he has a a reputation for being a conspiracy theorist and general lunatic in the UK

I went through his blog and read some of his posts for context. That reputation doesn't seem entirely unearned.

Are they still victims if the accused is cleared of wrongdoing?

Don't they become false accusers at that stage?

Why do accusers get to keep anonymous when defendants can not?

Potentially?

"Not guilty" does not mean "innocent."

Is this 1984 style newspeak?

In Common Law countries defendants in criminal proceedings are afforded a presumption of innocent. Therefore if they are found not guilty they stay innocent as originally presumed.

> In Common Law countries

(FYI, Scots law is not solely common law. Scots law is a hybrid civil and common law.)

> Therefore if they are found not guilty they stay innocent as originally presumed.

The point the other poster was making is: being found Not Guilty or Not Proven, beyond reasonable doubt, in a criminal trial does not imply the accused was morally innocent.

Often juries may suspect the accused is morally guilty but feel there is insufficient evidence.

Jurors in the UK however are never allowed to talk about their deliberations. So we can't know their reasoning.

You are pretending that the legal definition of innocence is the same as the moral or colloquial definition.

They aren't remotely the same.

If this were a courtroom, sure.

I disagree, innocent until proven guilty. Not guilty implies guilt has not been proven, therefore remaining innocent.

Specifically, innocent in the eyes of the law. The legal status is very different from the factual question of whether he actually did it, which is why different legal processes have different standards of proof. And also why procedural problems, which obviously don't change whether or not the event happened, can still result in the accused being found innocent in the eyes of the law.

I'd also point out that "his behaviour was not bad enough for him to be convicted of a crime" isn't exactly a ringing character endorsement. Especially when the Scottish Government messed up the prosecution, something they really shouldn't have been involved in.

There not being enough evidence to convict does not equal a false accusation.

The law under which Murray was prosecuted does not protect victims, it protects accusers -- Salmond was cleared.

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