LEGAL advice released by the Scottish Government appears to debunk Alex Salmond’s central claim about a high-level plot against him.

Mr Salmond has claimed senior SNP figures conspired to use a police investigation to thwart his high-profile legal fight with the Government.

He said their aim was effectively to have his judicial review action over sexual misconduct claims elbowed aside by the criminal case, sparing Nicola Sturgeon embarrassment.

He said they wanted his case to be paused or ‘sisted’ as the lower priority, so the criminal case would 'overtake' his and ruin and even jail him.

However the newly released legal advice shows the Government didn't want Mr Salmond's case to be sisted. 

Ms Sturgeon was explicitly advised against that option, and told reporting restrictions on the identity of two women who had complained about Mr Salmond would clearly be the “preferable and appropriate route”. 

The First Minister was given the advice in September 2018, while Mr Salmond's case was still in its infancy, suggesting there would be little merit in any subsequent plot based on sisting it. 

READ MORE: Tom Gordon - The Salmond rollercoaster may be coming to a halt

Releasing the material to the Holyrood inquiry into the Salmond affair, deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “This puts beyond any doubt that there was any attempt to delay the judicial review so that it would be overtaken by criminal proceedings.”

It followed Ms Sturgeon telling the inquiry on Wednesday that Mr Salmond’s theory about "gaming" the justice system was bizarre and absurd, and stressed the Government never tried to have his case sisted.

Mr Salmond launched his judicial review in August 2018 after the Scottish Government completed a sexual misconduct probe into him, based on complaints filed in January of that year.

The Government also alerted the police to its probe in August 2018, starting a criminal investigation. 

In a note written to the First Minister and her top official on September 17, 2018, the Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC wrote: “The question arises as to how to minimise the potential impact of the reporting of these [judicial review] proceedings on any future criminal process.

“There are two potentially available mechanisms to that end:  

“(i) a sist (ie the petition is put on hold for a period of time to allow the criminal investigation to proceed); and (ii) reporting restrictions.

“I am satisfied that, if reporting restrictions are competent, these would adequately protect the public interest in any future criminal proceedings. 

“On that basis, that would clearly be the preferable and appropriate route, since it would enable the issues raised by the petition [for judicial review] to be addressed whilst protecting any future criminal process.”

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson clash over Alex Salmond affair

Mr Salmond won his civil case against the Government in January 2019, showing its probe  had been “tainted by apparent bias”.

He was later charged with sexual assault but acquitted on all counts at a High Court trial last year. 

A Holyrood inquiry is now looking at the mistakes in the Government's probe and its doomed legal defence.

Despite two Holyrood votes in November demanding full disclosure, Mr Swinney only released some of the Government's legal advice on Tuesday, after being threatened with losing his job in a no confidence vote.

Mr Swinney tonight wrote to the inquiry and said more documents had been released, the most significant of which was the Lord Advocate’s note. 

He said: “The Scottish Government decided it was necessary to take the exceptional step of releasing key legal advice to ensure the public could have confidence that legal advice was not ignored or the process deliberately delayed.

“In particular it is clear that delaying the case – known as sisting - was only considered as an option in order to minimise the impact of the case on the ongoing police investigation. 

“This option was explicitly ruled out by the Lord Advocate who made clear that it was ‘preferable and appropriate’ that court-imposed reporting restrictions protect the integrity of any future prosecution.

“This puts beyond any doubt that there was any attempt to delay the judicial review so that it would be overtaken by criminal proceedings.

“I have instructed officials to consider whether further documents should be released, subject to essential statutory checks and notifications, and to do so as a matter of urgency.”

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon promises not to delay report on whether she lied to Holyrood

It is understood the inquiry is still pressing for other legal advice withheld by the Goverment to be released.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: “The limited documents that John Swinney has just published falls far short of the demands of the Scottish Parliament and of the Salmond inquiry.

“There is still nothing for the whole month of November.

“This is not good enough. End the secrecy and release all the legal advice.”

A spokesperson for Mr Salmond said: "The documents released tonight confirm that sisting (postponing) the Judicial Review was indeed under active consideration by the Scottish Government in September 2018.

"John Swinney must now be the only person in Scotland who believes that the piecemeal release of these extraordinary legal documents have done anything other than demolish the Government’s pretence that they were not warned months in advance that they were on course to lose the judicial review.

"The more they release the more threadbare the government’s position becomes. We look forward to further revelations in tomorrow’s instalment.

"The real question he has to answer is why they kept running down the clock and running up the bills, long after they were warned of the position by external counsel in the starkest of terms.

"Mr Salmond has never argued that the Lord Advocate was involved in accelerating the criminal case to overtake the judicial review."