There’s a spectre haunting the Scottish Government: the spectre of Alex Salmond. Like Banquo at the feast, the former First Minister has returned once more to unsettle his successor and onetime protege, Nicola Sturgeon. For the Sunday Mail has today revealed that lawyers are probing claims that perjury was committed in the former First Minister’s trial for sexual assault.
The Crown Office and Procurator fiscal service has appointed an independent QC to investigate claims from Salmond’s lawyers about a series of criminal allegations. He was cleared in 2020 of sexually assaulting nine women while he was First Minister. A jury found the former SNP leader not guilty on 12 of the sexual assault charges facing him, while another was found not proven.
The criminal trial followed a civil case Salmond won against the Scottish Government in January 2019 over its complaints investigation which was ruled to be ‘unlawful’, ‘unfair’ and ‘tainted by apparent bias.’ According to the Mail, the perjury claims concern evidence given at the Salmond trial which it is claimed is contradicted in statements given to a Holyrood inquiry which probed the Scottish Government’s failed case against him.
A police probe has also been launched into leaks to journalists concerning Salmond’s case. Codenamed Operation Newbiggin, it has already begun interviewing multiple witnesses. The news follows claims by former MSP Andy Wightman last month that he knew who leaked the Salmond report in March 2021.
Salmond has long-maintained that there was a plot to end his career, orchestrated by senior figures close to Nicola Sturgeon. At the Holyrood inquiry, he accused the Scottish Government of a ‘pantomime of deception and secrecy’ – something Sturgeon et al have always denied. Will the new revelations shine more light on this? Let’s hope the truth will out.
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