George Galloway and his former aide have both hit back as the battle over allegations of a "dirty tricks campaign" against the MP escalates.
Last night the Respect politician said he feared his home could have been bugged by the police officer he has accused of orchestrating a campaign against him.
His comments came just hours after his former secretary, Aisha Ali-Khan, revealed she is married to the policeman.
She insisted that her employer must have known of her marriage and she accused him of wilfully going on to brand her a "tart sleeping with random police officers".
The row erupted earlier this week when the one- time Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin claimed a Metropolitan police officer had attempted to use dirty tricks against him.
He said the man had slept with his aide in Mr Galloway's own home.
And he accused him of setting up a series of fake internet accounts which he said were designed to discredit the MP.
He has called for a full inquiry into the allegations by the Home Secretary Theresa May and the Metropolitan Police have put the officer involved on restricted duties. His former secretary, who has been suspended on full pay, said the officer was her husband and she had told Mr Galloway about him when she took the job.
She also insisted her husband had never slept in the MP's house although she admitted he did once pop inside the house to "use the loo".
In response, Mr Galloway said he feared his home could have been bugged by the police officer, thought to work in the Met's counter-terrorism team. He also said he would never have employed Ms Ali-Khan had he known what her husband did for a living.
The issue would have been too compromising to his work with Muslim activists, he said. He said he intended to ask the Metropolitan Police if the officer could have tampered with anything inside his home.
He said: "Did this man do anything while he was here, did he plant any listening devices or go though any of my papers?
"You don't have to be Einstein to work it out — an MP who has been involved in all of these causes like me and, hey presto, the head of the Muslim contact unit at [this team] inside my house without a warrant, free to roam around."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article