ALEX Salmond, for world news executives, has long been a kent face.
The former first minister’s picture led almost endless global news stories as Scotland wrestled with his big idea. Independence, after all, was a story with real international resonance.
So too - 18 months after the #metoo movement took off - was the issue that has thrust Mr Salmond back in the world’s headlines.
“Alex Salmond, Scotland’s Former First Minister, Is Charged With Attempted Rapes,” matter-of-factly declared The New York Times.
America’s newspaper of record set a tone for international coverage of the news dominating Scotland. This was a criminal court story, not a political one.
Mr Salmond, said international media, like domestic ones, had also declared his innocence outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
US rolling news channel CNN ran a similar headline under its “top world” stories. It concluded: “Despite leaving the Scottish parliament, Salmond has remained a prominent figure in both Scottish and British politics, working as a commentator and hosting ‘The Alex Salmond Show on Russian state broadcaster RT.”
The Kremlin station itself picked up the story at the top of its English-language internet page. It said: “Alex Salmond facing 14 charges including attempted rape, adamantly denies allegations.”
Russia’s main rolling news channel, Russia-24, declared that the former first minister of Scotland and host of the Alex Salmond Show on RT has been released following questioning.”
Russian TV said that the editor-in-chief of RT, Margarita Simonyan, had informed the public of the case on Twitter. Ms Simonyan, it said, tweeted that criminal proceedings continued, according to Russia-24. He, Salmond, she added “could not comment”.
However, big European papers highlighted politics, not process. In Paris, Libération said Mr Salmond had been the “ténor”, the leading voice, of the independence movement for what it described as “the United Kingdom’s most northerly province”. In Madrid, business daily Expansión headlined on the “independentista” Alex Salmond, the promoter, or prime mover, of the 2014 referendum, being accused of sex crimes.
In Rome, La Repubblica, looked at what the case might mean for independence.
“He may not have looked the part of Braveheart, and yet he came close,” it began, before rehearsing recent events in Scotland.
It concluded: “With his mild-mannered and tame air, Alex Salmond was an improbable Braveheat. Now he himself risks becoming an obstacle to achieving his own dream.”
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