Sturgeon accused Salmond of 'revenge mission' against her government

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon accused her predecessor Alex Salmond of pursuing "a bit of a revenge mission" over the Scottish government's mishandling of harassment complaints against him.

The quote appears in the interview Sturgeon gave her independent adviser on the ministerial code, James Hamilton, when he investigated opposition claims that she had misled parliament.

A transcript of the interview has been published for the first time in a large bundle of documents released following a freedom of information request, which has been subject to legal dispute.

Sturgeon also suggested that Salmond may have stirred a "hornet's nest" when he began contacting Scottish government officials for support following an allegation of inappropriate behaviour at Edinburgh Airport in 2017.

Salmond successfully sued the government in 2019 over its mishandling of complaints against him.

In his interview with Hamilton, he said Sturgeon had made false statements about her government's handling of the complaints, and claimed a leak about the case came from her office.

Ministers had faced legal action after missing a series of deadlines to produce some correspondence relating to Hamilton's 2021 inquiry - which led to Sturgeon being cleared of breaking the ministerial code over a botched investigation into Salmond.

First Minister John Swinney previously told parliament that the request was complicated by the need to make redactions to avoid identifying women who had made allegations against Salmond.

Salmond, who died in 2024, was cleared of sexually assaulting nine women in 2020.

In an interview with Hamilton in February 2021, Sturgeon said Salmond initially seemed "shaken" by a Sky News query about the Edinburgh Airport allegation, which he denied.

Sturgeon said she had been told that Salmond, his lawyers "or a bit of both" had contacted people in the government "effectively asking people that he had worked with or that might have been with him going through Edinburgh Airport to back him up".

The former SNP leader said that left her with a "lingering concern" that Salmond contacting people in the Scottish government "had appeared to almost stir something", adding "a hornets [sic] nest had been stirred kind of thing".

Sturgeon told Hamilton: "And then he [Salmond] said something to me about you know, you can't have stories like this running because you get one and the floodgates will open kind of thing, which he immediately qualified and said 'oh no, that's not to say that I think there is anything there'.

"But it was just the combination of things left me with a 'is there something that is about to come forward about Mr Salmond's behaviour?'"

Sturgeon said she did not think about such concerns every day, adding "but it was there in the back of my mind, and that I suppose is the backdrop to what unfolded at a later stage".

The ex-first minister also told Hamilton that she thought her predecessor was "on a bit of a revenge mission".

Salmond, in his interview with Hamilton, said Sturgeon's claim that she did not attempt to intervene in the harassment investigation was "simply untrue".

He also claimed that the leak of a senior civil servant's report into the harassment allegations to the Daily Record newspaper could only have come from Sturgeon or one of her special advisers.

In her memoir, Frankly, Sturgeon denied releasing details about the probe, or having any knowledge of who did. But she added it would have been "classic Alex" to have been behind the leak.

That suggestion was dismissed by Salmond's allies, and by the former Daily Record journalist who first reported the leaked report.

Scotland's Information Commissioner took legal action against the government last month after it failed to meet deadlines to publish the documents.

The watchdog is dealing with six different freedom of information appeals relating to the Sturgeon and Salmond inquiries.

The government is appealing against two key cases in the Court of Session, including an order to produce some of the evidence considered by Hamilton during his investigation into whether Sturgeon broke the ministerial code.

Ministers had agreed to release correspondence with the secretariat working for Hamilton - but said it was taking time to make necessary redactions.

The latest release includes almost 5,000 pages of documents, with some parts heavily redacted.

The row dates back to March 2021, when Hamilton, an Irish lawyer, cleared the then first minister Sturgeon of breaching the ministerial code.

A freedom of information request was then made to the Scottish government for all written evidence used in the investigation.

The government had originally insisted that as Hamilton was an independent adviser on the ministerial code and he was not subject to freedom of information legislation.

However, the information commissioner intervened and ordered the government to look at the case again.

Ministers then challenged this decision in the Court of Session, sparking a lengthy series of complex appeals.

Last month, after being informed by the government that they would not meet the latest deadline to publish documents, the information commissioner confirmed he would take legal action against the government.

When Salmond died, aged 69, he had been suing the Scottish government over a botched investigation into harassment complaints made about him.

Paul McManus, a drummer with the Scottish band Gun, has since taken up the case.

Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser said the government had "been at pains to try and protect the reputation of Nicola Sturgeon throughout this and have shamefully and repeatedly ignored deadlines from the information commissioner to publish these files".

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: "John Swinney and the SNP have fought this every step of the way, spending eyewatering amounts of taxpayer money in court trying to bury these documents.

"The release of these documents is a win for transparency and for the rule of law, but it is shameful that the SNP government had to be dragged to this point kicking and screaming."