Last year, Scotland’s former first minister Alex Salmond had a heart attack during a trip to North Macedonia and passed away. Salmond brought his country to the brink of independence in 2014 and helped establish the Scottish National party as a mainstream group north of the border – but his career was also tainted by allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. As revealed by the Sunday Times, the ex-FM died almost penniless in 2024, after fighting two court battles in a bid to save his reputation. One of his supporters, former SNP MSP Fergus Ewing, has claimed that ‘the prosecution against him arose, in substantial party, from motives of malice on the part of his enemies’. Good heavens.
One of the cases Salmond was involved in included a judicial review of a misconduct probe into the former first minister, which was deemed to be ‘tainted with bias’. The second criminal case saw Salmond acquitted of all charges of sexual assault – but the combined cost of defending himself is thought to have been more than £500,000. While the former SNP man was awarded £512,000 towards legal costs, Salmond’s former lawyers insist that nothing went to Salmond or his wife – with the money instead being used to cover his bills. Now the ex-FM’s estate is seeking sequestration (the Scottish equivalent of bankruptcy) after the court action.
A number of Salmond’s supporters have hit out at the treatment of the former FM, with ex-SNP MP Joanna Cherry fuming to the Times that ‘there was a conspiracy to remove Alex Salmond from public life which began in 2017 and got out of control in the months and years that followed’. Ewing added that a group of anti-Salmond civil servants campaigned to have the former first minister prosecuted, saying: ‘They couldn’t bring him down in court but they brought him down financially.’ And the current leader of the Alba party – which Salmond set up in 2021 – Kenny MacAskill lamented: ‘What resource he had set aside for [his wife] and himself required to be spent defending his honour and liberty.’
Despite the financial cost of the two aforementioned cases, Salmond was still pursuing a claim against the Scottish government for malfeasance, the wrongful exercise of lawful authority, and a hearing will take place early next year. Stay tuned…
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