Thread by @DanVevers

Alex Salmond's final submission to the Holyrood inquiry is simply explosive, and contains gravely serious allegations.

“The inescapable conclusion is of a malicious and concerted attempt to damage my reputation and remove me from public life in Scotland."

"Perhaps the most serious issue of all is the
complete breakdown of the necessary barriers which should exist between Government, political party and indeed the prosecution authorities in any country
which abides by the rule of law."

The submission is designed as an overview of all four stages of the inquiry, so it then dives into phase 1, which concerns development of the harassment procedure against former ministers.

Some of this will be familiar to those who read at the weekend. thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-…

Mr Salmond says in Nov 2017, when allegations were first raised - and while the procedure was being designed - there were "two directly political interventions".

Among them the move to "recast" the process to remove the FM from it - after a Sturgeon-Evans meeting on the 29th.

(Going to skip ahead as it's late and I really just want to highlight key bits at the moment)

In a section titled 'The question of 'conspiracy'', Mr Salmond names SNP chief exec Peter Murrell (Ms Sturgeon's husband) and a raft of other officials as behind a bid to imprison him.

There is of course the thorny issue of evidence. In a statement, the SNP tonight said he doesn't have a "shred" of it.

At the start of his submission, Mr Salmond claimed "documentary evidence exists" for every allegation made - but that the Crown Office refuses to release it.

Going back to where we were - on 'conspiracy' - Mr Salmond says it's "disgraceful" the evidence he says exists hasn't been released.

Part of that includes legal advice provided to ScotGov for the judicial review - with no records yet published of 17 meetings held with counsel.

He believes ScotGov sought advice on whether the civil court proceedings could be "sisted" or paused if there were criminal charges against Mr Salmond. This in the knowledge that their own investigation was at risk of being - and later, highly likely to be - declared unlawful.

Mr Salmond goes on to accuse Barbara Allison, ScotGov's director of communications, of misleading the inquiry by saying she had not sought out potential witnesses against him after the police investigation had begun in August 2018.

In this case, he provides documentary evidence.

As to the Sue Ruddick email above, Mr Salmond says there was a "recruitment of names to receive" it.

Anne Harvey, who works in the SNP whips' office at Westminster, on asked to be part of this, branded it to colleagues a "witch-hunt".

Then, astonishingly, Mr Salmond alleges Mr Murrell "deployed" staff to drum up police complaints against him.

"Any supporting evidence establishing this point was not shared with the Committee by the crown Office. Why?"

Mr Murrell, for his part, denies any conspiracy.

In a section on the Crown Office, Mr Salmond highlights multiple threats of prosecution he's had over disclosing certain documents.

But when the inquiry invoked S.23 powers to obtain evidence, he says the Crown provided "irrelevant" files it knew the committee couldn't publish.

Mr Salmond calls the Lord Advocate "deeply compromised" - & asks if he "instructed" the original complainants, neither of whom wanted to go to the police, to make police statements.

He adds: "The Crown Office under current leadership is a department simply not fit for purpose."

Mr Salmond then provides a summary to close.

"The real cost to the Scottish people runs into many millions of pounds and yet no-one in this entire process has uttered the simple words which are necessary on occasions
to renew and refresh democratic institutions - 'I Resign'."

The SNP has accused its ex-leader of "ridiculous and baseless claims and lashing out at all and sundry".

The party says the women who complained "barely merit a mention in his conspiracy dossier".

Mr Salmond does have about a page on 'The interests of the complainants'.

Oh, the link to the actual submission as well. D’oh. parliament.scot/HarassmentComp…