Nicola Sturgeon has said that Alex Salmond’s death did not change anything for her. The former first minister said she had “grieved for Alex four years, five years ago”.
Sturgeon said she “wouldn’t have wanted” to speak to her predecessor “unless he had been prepared to acknowledge some of the things that he had done”.
Salmond died in October last year after suffering a heart attack in North Macedonia. Sturgeon paid tribute to him when he died but was not invited to the funeral and did not attend a Holyrood condolences debate. The pair fell out after Sturgeon’s government pursued sexual harassment allegations against Salmond.
She told the FT: “I had come to accept that I’d probably never speak to him again — partly because I didn’t think he would want to speak to me, but also because, had he turned up on my doorstep one day, unless he had been prepared to acknowledge some of the things that he had done, I wouldn’t have wanted to do that.”
Salmond was acquitted of sexual assault charges in 2020. But the pair continued their fall out and he headed up the rival pro-independence Alba party the following year.
When asked if his death changed anything for her, Sturgeon said: “No . . . I came to the conclusion that I probably grieved for Alex four years, five years ago.”
She said she knew some of the women who had madE allegations about him. She said: “I’ve seen the impact not just of what they believe happened to them initially but also the impact of the way he then behaved. It’s been pretty hard.”
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