His books include two memoirs, first about his time in Central Asia, Murder in Samarkand (2006), and then The Catholic Orangemen of Togo: and other Conflicts I Have Known (2009), about his early career years in West Africa; and a historical biography, Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game (2016), about Alexander Burnes and the rivalry between the 19th century British and Russian Empires over influence in Asia.

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

[16][17] Murray had a number of overseas postings with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to Nigeria, Poland (in the 1990s, where he was first secretary heading the embassy's political and economic section)[18] and Ghana.

[13] In London, he was appointed to the FCO's Southern European Department, as Cyprus desk officer, and later became head of the Maritime Section.

[22] In a 2005 University of York speech, Murray recounted that, about a fortnight after his arrival, he observed a court trial at which an elderly defendant said his statement about two of the other accused, nephews of his, had been made as he watched his children being tortured, and the claim the two men were associates of Osama bin Laden was entirely false.

[18] In October 2002, according to Nick Cohen in The Observer, Murray "delivered a speech which broke with all the established principles of Foreign Office diplomacy".

The major political parties are banned; Parliament is not subject to democratic election and checks and balances on the authority of the electorate are lacking.

[27] Murray was summoned to the FCO in London and, on 8 March 2003, was reprimanded for writing to his employers, in response to a speech by President of the United States George W. Bush criticising human rights violations by Saddam Hussein, that "when it comes to the Karimov regime, systematic torture and rape appear to be treated as peccadilloes, not to affect the relationship and to be downplayed in the international fora.

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".

[30] A later enquiry by The Washington Post, in connection with an interview with Murray, did not indicate the British had instituted an "absolute ban" on using information gained via torture.

[27] However, a "local analyst" in Tashkent told Nick Paton Walsh that Murray and the US ambassador John Herbst (who left his Uzbekistan post in 2003) were regularly in heated disagreement.

[33] Only a few days after his return to Uzbekistan, Murray suffered another health crisis and was again flown back to London for medical treatment[34] for what turned out to have been a near-fatal pulmonary embolism on a lung.

[36] Murray's stance was also supported by Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development until her resignation in May 2003, and Daniel Hannan, the Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Speaking in the House of Commons, the Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said the government "endorse his comments about the human rights situation in Uzbekistan".

The following day, in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Murray countered that he was a "victim of conscience", although he did not then believe the Americans were involved.

[44] 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.

[46][47] An attempt to release the Foreign Office documents, including Murray's telegrams, was made by Jeremy Corbyn, then a backbench Labour MP, in whose constituency Arsenal is based.

[51] Following the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, Murray stood for election in the July 2009 Norwich North by-election under the slogan "Put an honest man into Parliament".

[54] By September 2011 he had left the Liberal Democrats again, as he objected to policies pursued by the coalition government, and joined the Scottish National Party.

[62] In 2011–2012 Murray exposed four undisclosed meetings that took place from September 2009 between Britain's then defence minister Liam Fox, Fox’s friend Adam Werritty and the UK Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould in Tel Aviv, possibly to promote a pro-Israel or anti-Iran foreign policy outside the control of the UK Foreign Office.

[64][65][66][67][68][69] Murray, who had visited the former chemical site at Nukus, Uzbekistan, where novichok was manufactured,[70] stated that Russia's stocks had been dismantled with US assistance.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson confirmed that the photographs "of two suspects at Gatwick are taken from two different cameras covering separate lanes at the point passengers exit from international arrivals".

The judge in the case, Lady Dorrian, had issued an order forbidding the publication of the names of the women who testified against Salmond, or other information that might identify them.

[81] In March 2021 she found Murray to be in contempt of court after he published information that in her view could potentially lead to identifying some of the complainants,[59] and sentenced him to eight months' imprisonment.

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

[93][2] He is a friend of Peter Oborne, who described him as "one of the greatest truth-tellers of our time" and said that "Apart from Julian Assange, no one has done more to expose coalition crimes during the War on Terror.

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

[22] 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.

[103][104] Robin Soans used an interview with Murray and Alieva as a character for his verbatim-style play Talking to Terrorists which had a successful run at the Royal Court Theatre and has since been produced worldwide.

[108] The play, with David Tennant portraying Craig Murray, was nominated for best drama at the Sony Radio Academy Awards 2011[109][108] and had positive reviews.