LONDON — The husband of former Scottish chief Nicola Sturgeon used to be charged Thursday with embezzlement in a probe into the price range of Scotland’s pro-independence governing birthday celebration.
Police in Scotland stated a 59-year-old guy used to be charged upcoming being arrested and brought into custody previous within the year. He used to be absolved upcoming being charged, the drive stated. Occasion police didn’t identify the suspect, the main points supplied matched up with Peter Murrell, the birthday celebration’s former government who used to be arrested simply over a yr in the past.
Scottish police were investigating how 600,000 kilos ($750,000) earmarked for a Scottish freedom marketing campaign have been spent. Murrell, Sturgeon and Colin Beattie, the Scottish Nationwide Celebration’s former treasurer, have been arrested and puzzled extreme yr within the probe however absolved with out being charged with against the law.
Murrell’s first arrest got here in a while upcoming Sturgeon’s superb announcement in February 2023 that she used to be resigning her submit upcoming 8 years as birthday celebration chief and primary minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous govt.
Murrell stepped i’m sick March 18 amid controversy concerning the birthday celebration’s declining club and a sour battle to exchange Sturgeon. He held the location for greater than twenty years.
On the while of Murrell’s first arrest, police searched the couple’s Glasgow house over two days.
Sturgeon stated upcoming being absolved from custody in June that her arrest were “both a shock and deeply distressing.” She insisted she had accomplished not anything flawed.
“I do wish to say this, and to do so in the strongest possible terms,” she stated in a commentary on social media on the while. ”Innocence is not only a presumption I’m entitled to in legislation. I do know past indecision that I’m in truth blameless of any wrongdoing.”
In saying her departure, Sturgeon stated she knew “in my head and in my heart” that it used to be the best while for her, her birthday celebration and her nation to form means for anyone else.