Former Scottish First Minister's Husband Arrested in £600K Fraud Probe: Report
09:56 GMT 05.04.2023 (Updated: 15:26 GMT 28.05.2023)
© AP Photo / Scott Heppell / Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon poses for the media with husband Peter Murrell, outside polling station in Glasgow, Scotland
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Speculation has been rife over the motivations for Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon's sudden and unexpected resignation in February amid a series of government crises. The then-SNP leader dodged questions about the ongoing police probe into party finances.
The husband of former Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon has reportedly been arrested as part of a £600,000 fraud probe into their party's finances.
Police Scotland announced on Wednesday morning that they had arrested a man aged 58 — the same age as the former first minister's husband Peter Murrell — at Sturgeon's house and were carrying out searches at a number of addresses.
TV footage showed two police vans outside Sturgeon and Murrell's home in Glasgow, with the perimeter cordoned off and a forensics tent erected on their front lawn.
BREAKING: 58 year old man arrested at former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s house in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the SNP. @itvnews pic.twitter.com/vtEUtlgKun
— Louise Scott (@LouiseScottITV) April 5, 2023
Murrell served as SNP chief executive for 24 years until he resigned last month following the revelation that the party had overstated its membership figures by around 30,000 — in the midst of the leadership election prompted by his wife's unexpected resignation as party leader and first minister of the devolved regional administration a month earlier.
Sturgeon's successor Humza Yousaf — the 'continuity' candidate for her faction within the SNP who has only been in post for a week following the rushed party leadership contest — revealed to TV reporters that "police are at party headquarters." But he insisted that he only learned of Murrell's arrest after it happened.
NEW: First Minister @HumzaYousaf has been reacting to the arrest of Peter Murrell pic.twitter.com/WaR3l6GgFz
— @GinaDavidson (@ginadavidsonlbc) April 5, 2023
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Scotland's public prosecutor, said it would "continue to work with police in this ongoing investigation."
"It is standard practice that any case regarding politicians is dealt with by prosecutors without the involvement of the Law Officers," the service said.
Police have left the SNP's Edinburgh headquarters carrying evidence bags. https://t.co/rG2nqqtdWF pic.twitter.com/wz4BUfz3Vs
— STV News (@STVNews) April 5, 2023
The case was opened in March 2021 after an un-named citizen filed a formal complaint to Police Scotland over the apparent disappearance from the SNP's published accounts of some £600,000 raised from members and supporters in two special appeals in 2017 and 2019.
That money was supposedly a ring-fenced campaign fund for a re-run of the failed 2014 Scottish independence referendum, which the SNP had promised its voters in the wake of the 2016 UK-wide vote to leave the European Union. Some sources speculate that the fund was instead spent on campaigning in the December 2019 UK general election, when the SNP increased its number of seats in the Westminster Parliament from 35 to 48.
Sturgeon refused to answer journalist's questions about the probe at the hastily-convened press conference to announce her resignation on February 15.
Opposition Scottish Labour Party deputy leader Jackie Baillie called the developments "deeply concerning."
"We need Humza Yousaf and Nicola Sturgeon to urgently state what they knew and when," Baillie demanded.
The SNP said it would "would not be appropriate to comment on any live police investigation," but admitted that it had been "co-operating" with detectives.
"At its meeting on Saturday, the governing body of the SNP, the NEC, agreed to a review of governance and transparency — that will be taken forward in the coming weeks," the party said.
