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Alex Salmond has accused officials of the Scottish government and the SNP of a “malicious and concerted effort” to damage his reputation, “even to the point of having me imprisoned”.
Scotland’s former prime minister alleges that Peter Murrell, the SNP’s chief executive and Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, deployed high-level personalities to recruit and persuade staff members to file police complaints against him.
Murrell has previously denied conspiring against Salmond. The SNP has called its latest claims “more claims without a shred of evidence.”
Regarding the alleged effort to damage it, he claims that the Scottish Crown Office did not share with the committee any evidence to establish this point. “Why?” he asks.
It says that when the harassment committee requested documentation that was relevant to its investigations, it was given “irrelevant information that it had not requested and that could never be released as long as the relevant information remained undisclosed.”
He states that it was clear that the government’s special advisers were informing the media about this information before the MSPs who were part of the committee had seen it.
Salmond criticizes the Scottish Crown office and claims that there has been a complete breakdown of barriers between the government, the party and the prosecution.
He made his final written submissions before his appearance Wednesday as a witness to the Holyrood investigation, which is investigating the Scottish government’s mishandling of harassment complaints against him.
Salmond alleges that Sturgeon, his successor as prime minister and leader of the SNP party, violated the ministerial code several times, which may be a matter of resignation.
He claims that she misled the Scottish Parliament by giving an incorrect date for when she first learned of the complaints against her. Sturgeon has repeatedly denied that Parliament has been misleading.
In his final presentation to the Holyrood committee, Mr. Salmond addresses the legal action, a judicial review, that he initiated into the government’s investigation into the allegations against him.
He says the costly case, which won and cost the taxpayer more than £ 600,000, was doomed, but that the hope at higher levels of government and the SNP was that police action against him would prevent it from reaching the courts.
Mr Salmond states: “The real cost to the Scottish people is many millions of pounds and yet no one in this entire process has uttered the simple words that are sometimes necessary to renew and refresh democratic institutions: ‘I resign’ .
“The committee now has an opportunity to address that position.”
Furthermore, Salmond was acquitted of 13 counts of sexual assault against nine women in a criminal trial last year.
In response to his latest claims, an SNP spokesperson said: “This is just one more claim without a shred of credible evidence.
“Several of the women have already made it clear how utterly absurd it is to suggest that they were part of a conspiracy to bring him down. And yet Alex Salmond keeps making these ridiculous and baseless claims and attacking each and every one.
“The people who loyally supported him for years and worked tirelessly to get him elected do not deserve these smears. And the women who complained about his behavior, who barely deserve a mention in his conspiracy file, certainly deserve better.”
