NOS News•
Peter Murrell, the husband of former Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, has been arrested in Scotland on suspicion of fraud. In a statement, the Scottish Police said he was arrested as part of a major investigation into the funding of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Sturgeon’s political party and also Murrell.
The Scottish police have been investigating for months what happened to the more than £600,000 that the party managed to raise during a campaign for a Scottish independence referendum in 2017. That money is nowhere to be found in the party’s accounts. Presumably it was used to pay other costs of the party.
Disputed again
Between 1999 and this year, Murrell was the general manager of the SNP and a prominent member of the party. He was also closely involved in the election campaigns of Sturgeon and her predecessor Alex Salmond, but he has now been discredited again in a short time.
Last month he had to resign as general manager after making misleading comments about the declining membership of the SNP. Since 2019, membership is said to have fallen from 128,000 to 72,000, but Murrell contradicted those figures. In the end, after pressure from members and journalists, the party reluctantly admitted the fall.
Conflict of interest
But even before that, his position was already under fire. For example, there is still a lot of uncertainty about a large amount of money that he would have lent to the party and his integrity has been questioned because of his marriage to Nicola Sturgeon.
After Sturgeon’s unexpected resignation as prime minister and party leader, elections were organized within the party for a new leader. Candidates Forbes and Regan already questioned the independence of the elections. In the end, Humza Yousaf emerged as the winner, who is expected to continue Sturgeon’s policy.
The SNP has told the BBC that it is “fully cooperating with the investigation”, but would not comment further.
