A SENIOR Nationalist has been criticised after campaigning alongside a disgraced colleague who was branded dishonest by a sheriff.
Coatbridge & Chryston MSP Fulton MacGregor posed alongside councillor Dr Imtiaz Majid for the launch of the SNP’s local government election campaign in North Lanarkshire.
Dr Majid was heavily criticised by a sheriff last year for trying to cheat his ex-wife out of a fair divorce settlement by hiding assets and claiming to have lost a fortune a gambling addiction.
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Sheriff Morag Galbraith also noted Dr Majid’s wife once left him to go to a “women’s refuge”.
She said some of the Coatbridge councillor’s evidence had been “entirely unacceptable and incredible” and called some of his claims in court “ludicrous” and “a complete fabrication”.
She also said Dr Majid, 51, who is well-known to Nicola Sturgeon, had left his former wife “continually short of money” and in an “inadequately furnished and heated” house.
In a ruling in September, she ordered him to pay the mother of his two children £150,000.
She also ordered him to pay his ex-wife's £50,000 legal costs. Dr Majid is now appealing.
The case was widely covered in the press after it was first reported by The Herald.
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However the SNP never suspended Dr Majid, who hopes to stand for re-election in May.
Mr MacGregor appeared alongside him last week at the launch of the SNP’s local election fight in Coatbridge and Chryston, and posted a picture on his Facebook page.
A Scottish Labour spokesman said: “Nicola Sturgeon must be sick of seeing the Coatbridge SNP in the headlines.
"Given the SNP dragged in all its existing councillors in North Lanarkshire for vetting at the weekend, either Dr Majid is still seen as an acceptable candidate for the SNP - or Fulton MacGregor's judgment is, once again, severely lacking."
Mr MacGregor and Dr Majid have links to the so-called ‘Monklands McMafia’, a party faction close to Lanarkshire MSPs Richard Lyle and Alex Neil, which is involved in a power struggle with new activists around the Coatbridge MP Phil Boswell.
After Mr MacGregor proposed him for the position, Dr Majid was elected convener of the SNP’s Coatbridge & Chryston constituency association in January 2016.
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A month later SNP HQ suspended the branch for “toxic” infighting.
Mr MacGregor said: “Dr Majid is an SNP member and was campaigning alongside the other local members at the recent launch of our local government campaign.”
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