ALEX Salmond’s long-awaited evidence to the Holyrood inquiry into his legal battle with Nicola Sturgeon's Government has finally been published.
Almost 150 pages of legal papers and correspondence were released this morning.
It includes his own legal advice, court papers and letters between his lawyers and Ms Sturgeon’s top official, Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans.
It shows Mr Salmond’s lawyers repeatedly warning the Government it was acting unlawfully and offering mediation and arbitration to resolve the issue, instead of going to court.
Mr Salmond had previously missed three deadlines for submitting the evidence, complaining legal obstacles, including the threat of prosecution, made it impossible to present a comprehensive picture.
However MSPs ran out of patience with him last month, and urged him to submit what he could before he ran out of time to have an impact on the inquiry.
The inquiry is looking at how the Scottish Government botched a probe into sexual misconduct claims made against Mr Salmond in 2018.
The former First Minister had the exercise set aside in a judicial review after showing it was unlawful and “tainted by apparent bias”.
The Government’s error - appointing an investigating officer who had been in prior contact with his accusers - left taxpayers with a £512,000 bill for Mr Salmond’s costs.
The publication of Mr Salmond’s files comes a day before MSPs are due to debate a Tory motion calling for the Government’s own legal advice on the case to be published.
Although Ms Sturgeon promised in January 2019, after the Government’s defence collapsed, that the inquiry could have whatever it wanted, her ministers and officials have since refused to release swathes of material on the ground of legal privilege.
This is in spite of the Government recently waiving legal privilege to release its advice to three different judge-led inquiries.
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