By Bill Heaney
BBC Scotland is reporting that former first minister Alex Salmond has launched a fresh legal case against the Scottish government.
Mr Salmond took the government to court in 2019 over its mishandling of harassment complaints against him. Salmond and Sturgeon were friends in the past.
He has already been awarded over half a million pounds in costs for the case. The Herald reports that he is seeking damages and loss of earnings of £3 million.
The former SNP leader was cleared of sexual assault charges in a separate criminal trial in 2020.
Mr Salmond, who is now leader of the Alba party, is understood to have lodged a Court of Session petition alleging “misfeasance” by civil servants.
A Scottish government spokesperson said it “would not be appropriate to comment” on a live legal case.
A statement from Mr Salmond is expected later.
It comes after a special Holyrood committee was set up to investigate the government’s handling of misconduct claims made against him by two civil servants.
The Scottish government had been forced to admit it had acted unlawfully and paid the former first minister’s legal fees of £512,000 after he launched a judicial review case.
A committee of nine MSPs – four from the SNP, two Tories and one from each of Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems – was chosen, headed by deputy presiding officer Linda Fabiani.
Mr Salmond told them that a group of people close to his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, had plotted against him.
He claimed Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code by misleading parliament during the investigation.
Ms Sturgeon had already been cleared of breaching the ministerial code by a separate independent inquiry.
The panel concluded that the Scottish government’s handling of harassment complaints against Mr Salmond was “seriously flawed”.
It also said women had been badly let down by the government.
In January last year, the Scottish government published a new procedure for dealing with harassment and bullying complaints against ministers.
External investigators will now look into formal complaints against ministers, with the government responsible for acting on findings.
Alex Salmond was cleared by a jury of 14 counts of sexual assault after a two week trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2020.
Caption: Alex Salmond with his legal team and PR man Campbell Gunn on their way to court on a previous occasion.