Alex Salmond has lodged a formal complaint about a Government official who allegedly disclosed the name of a woman who complained about him.
The former First Minister took the action amid claims of an inappropriate disclosure.
Sturgeon is today giving evidence to a Holyrood committee investigating the Government’s 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 Sturgeon, had been unlawful and tainted by apparent bias.
The fiasco cost over £600,000 of public money.
Salmond gave evidence to the Inquiry last week and accused his successor of misleading parliament.
A key issue centres on allegations a Government official leaked the name of one of the female complainers to Geoff Aberdein, who had previously been Salmond’s chief of staff.
Labour’s Jackie Baillie said in any other position doing this would be a “sackable offence” as she demanded to know if the First Minister or the Permanent Secretary had authorised this.
But Sturgeon said: “I am not accepting that that happened, therefore I am clearly not accepting that was authorised.”
The First Minister accepted this was a “matter of contention”.
She added: “Certainly in relation to one of the complainants Alex Salmond was pretty clear he had found out through investigations of Scottish Government social media accounts he had found out who that was.
“And in relation to the other one, and this is the bit I am perhaps speculating on, it must have been the case when he got that letter, because he knew about the incident because he had apologised to the person.
“So my assumption would be that he would have known that without anybody having to tell him. And I know from what he told me he found out the identity of the other one through his own investigations.”
A spokesperson for Salmond said: ‘’Mr Salmond has lodged a formal complaint with the Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government under the civil service code, on the conduct of the official who is alleged to have breached civil service rules, by disclosing the name of a complainant in the Scottish Government process.”
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