Millionaire friends of Alex Salmond are ready to bankroll his legal case against the Scottish Government to win justice for the late former First Minister.
The court action has been frozen until May 12 to allow for Salmond’s widow Moira to be appointed as the executor of his estate, the Sunday Mail can reveal.
Once that process is complete she will have legal authority to instruct lawyers to continue suing the government over its botched investigation into harassment complaints against her husband.
The potentially devastating case for the SNP centres on claims senior figures close to Nicola Sturgeon colluded to destroy Salmond with sexual misconduct allegations over fears he was planning a return to front line politics in 2018.
Allies of the former SNP leader are willing to finance the case in order to make sure Salmond’s name is cleared.
A source said: “There are a lot of people who want to make sure justice is done for Alex including people with considerable resources and so ironically the case may be in an even stronger position after his death.
“It had looked like the government was hoping Alex would run out of money when he was alive and they would be able to outspend him with public funds.
“In a case like this solicitors who are acting for a pursuer when he or she dies must notify the court with the death certificate – at which point the case automatically gets sisted.
“The court is given an indication of how long it is likely to take for an executor to be appointed and in this case the court has sisted the case until May.
“What will happen now is that Moira will be appointed as the executor.
“There is a process called confirmation where the executor makes an application to the court to be able to distribute the estate.
“At that point the executor has authority to deal with the deceased’s estate which will include this case.
“It could be before May if everything comes through before then but when it does come through there is no doubt at all that the case is going to proceed.”
Salmond was in the process of suing the Scottish government when he died of a heart attack aged 69 in October.
Last year he lodged a Court of Session petition seeking a reported £3million in damages and loss of earnings.
He had already been awarded more than £500,000 in costs by the Scottish government over the mishandling of harassment complaints against him.
The former first minister, who launched Alba in 2021, was cleared of sexual assault charges at a subsequent criminal trial.
He sued the government for misfeasance – a civil law term that means the wrongful exercise of lawful authority.
The government previously vowed to defend itself “robustly” in court however it is unclear what legal advice has been received by ministers and an out of court settlement could also be possible.
Kenny MacAskill, acting leader of the Alba Party and a close personal friend of Salmond, said: “There is a legal process to go through and ultimately Moira will be in control of that, but there is no doubt that the Scottish Government are on the ropes with this and that the family are very keen to keep things going.”
Salmond’s lawyers have claimed Holyrood officials acted “improperly, in bad faith and beyond their powers with the intention of injuring” the ex-SNP leader.
Before his death Salmond had warned a “day of reckoning” was coming and had named Nicola Sturgeon and ex-permanent secretary Leslie Evans in the case – accusing both of misfeasance.
Sturgeon has repeatedly denied being part of a plot against her former mentor.
An initial hearing into Salmond’s court action was heard at the Court of Session in November.
However the case has been postponed several times while separate criminal investigations take place into claims witnesses in both Salmond’s trial and a parliamentary inquiry into his case committed perjury.
Conservative MP David Davis, a close friend of Salmond, has said the legal issues had “put a huge pall over the last several years of this great man’s life”.
He suggested the strain of the case could have been a factor in Salmond’s death and added: “I want to see this exposed, opened up, so that the Scottish government is forced to answer the questions it ought to answer on this matter.”
A memorial service for Salmond earlier this month at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh was attended by hundreds of high profile political and business figures including Gordon Brown, John Swinney, Anas Sarwar, Springfield Properties chairman Sandy Adam, Aberdeen Asset Management CEO Martin Gilbert, and millionaire businessmen Jim McCall and Sir Brian Souter.
Salmond collapsed and died of a massive heart attack during lunch at a conference in Ohrid, North Macedonia despite the efforts of medical teams who desperately trying to resuscitate him.
He left behind devoted wife Moira, 87, his wife of 43 years with whom he lived in Strichen, Aberdeenshire.
Just a month before his death, the former MP and MSP revealed plans to stand in his old stomping ground of Banff and Buchan at the 2026 Holyrood Elections. Last week, his neice, Christina Hendry, daughter of his sister Gail, announced she would contest the constituency as an Alba candidate.
She said: “I want to honour his name and his legacy and stand in the constituency he announced earlier this year. In doing so, the people of Banffshire and Buchan Coast will be able to vote for a candidate with independence and Salmond blood running through their veins.”
Her uncle took the SNP from a fringe party in the 1990s to complete dominance in Scottish politics. But he later split with the party to form Alba following the allegations of sexual harassment.
Salmond was ultimately cleared of 13 charges, including one of attempted rape and a judicial review of a government investigation into his conduct was fount to have been “unlawful”, “procedurally unfair” and “tainted by apparent bias”.
A former senior advisor to Gordon Brown has urged Scottish Labour to demand a judicial inquiry into the pursuit of the criminal charges against the ex-FM and to make it a manifesto commitment for the 2026 election.
Paul Sinclair said they should also move quickly to fulfil the commitment they made in this summer’s manifesto to give the Scottish Parliament full privilege for members to be able to speak without fear of legal action.
He said: “This is an opportunity to reset the workings of government they wish to lead.
“What we know for certain is that Nicola Sturgeon’s administration acted unlawfully in its attempts to pursue Salmond. His victory in his judicial review told us that.
“We also know that John Swinney sanctioned spending public money on legal actions he was advised he would lose. Freedom of information has told us that.
“What we need to know is what motivated the move to change rules to allow civil servants to retrospectively make complaints about former politicians they worked for and how the path was laid from that to criminal charges.”
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