Alex Salmond has contradicted Nicola Sturgeon’s account of whether the name of a women who made a sexual harassment complaint against him was inappropriately disclosed.
The former First Minister told the Holyrood Inquiry the name had been shared with his former chief of staff.
A Holyrood committee is investigating the SNP Government’s botched handling of sexual misconduct complaints against Salmond when he was First Minister.
Salmond took the government to court and it was agreed the internal probe, which destroyed his friendship with Nicola Sturgeon, had been unlawful and tainted by apparent bias.
He was separately acquitted of sexual offences after a trial last year.
In a bombshell submission to the Inquiry, the former First Minister accused Sturgeon of misleading parliament and breaching the ministerial code of conduct on aspects of the tainted government probe.
He has also accused Sturgeon’s husband, SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, and her chief of staff Liz Lloyd of being part of a plot to imprison him.
A key issue is the meetings that took place in 2018 during the botched probe between Salmond and Sturgeon, at which she said the former First Minister informed her about the investigation
At Holyrood yesterday, Labour MSP Jackie Baillie referred to separate meetings held with Salmond’s former chief of staff Geoff Aberdein.
She claimed, “astonishingly”, that the identity of one of the original civil service complainants was revealed to the former chief of staff and then conveyed to Mr Salmond.
The First Minister said: “To the very best of my knowledge, I do not think that that happened.”
However, at the Holyrood Inquiry today, Baillie asked Salmond if the name of one of the complainers had been shared at a meeting attended by Aberdein.
Mr Salmond said it had, saying: “My former chief of staff told me that.”
