Iain Macwhirter: Cack-handed censorship puts Sturgeon’s memory back in the firing line

This is an incredibly high-risk strategy for Mr Salmond. He may fall completely on his face now that he has, for the second time, declined to appear before the committee following the Scottish parliament censoring parts of his evidence under pressure from the Crown Office. There are many in the narrow world of Scottish politics and media who will be only too glad for history to regard the former First Minister as a figure of ridicule.

Read more: So Nicola Sturgeon forgets stuff. Get over it

Politicians are rarely popular but Alex Salmond arouses a unique degree of hostility, especially from some prominent journalists who simply do not accept that he is an innocent man. Foremost amongst the sceptics is of course the First Minister, who happens to be one of the most popular politicians around. But her minions could still be her undoing.

Yesterday's cack-handed attempt to censor evidence after publication has placed the First Minister back in the firing line. The newly-redacted passages were all to do with meetings she had with Mr Salmond and others in 2018 – meetings about which she has had a very significant memory lapse. They are now out there for anyone with a laptop to see. The passages do not appear to identify any complainants, which makes their censorship even more puzzling. Whatever happens today, history will likely regard this as a decisive moment in the whole affair.

Lind Fabiani, convener of the Salmond inquiry

What was not censored, perhaps surprisingly, were Mr Salmond's astonishing allegations about his former senior colleagues in the SNP: the chief executive, Peter Murrell, chief operating officer Sue Ruddick, compliance officer Ian McCann and Ms Sturgeon's chief of staff, Liz Lloyd. Mr Salmond has accused them, by name, of a “deliberate, prolonged, malicious and concerted effort... to damage my reputation, even to the extent of having me imprisoned”. These allegations, under oath, are extremely detailed and potentially ruinous to their reputations.

The Gang of Four, as they're being called, would normally be expected to sue immediately for defamation. They may still do so. The law is not entirely clear here, but Mr Salmond's evidence does not enjoy full parliamentary “privilege” – that is the protection politicians have to say things in parliament without any risk of legal action. The charges he is making are so specific, personal and heinous that he would normally have to justify them in court.

Mr Salmond was attempting to turn today's hearing into a kind of courtroom drama. The Holyrood committee is anyway a quasi-judicial forum in which witnesses are required to swear to tell the truth and the whole truth. Mr Salmond claims he has all the evidence necessary to prove his allegations, but that the First Minister and her law officer, Lord Advocate James Wolffe, are using a dubious interpretation of the law on disclosure to prevent this evidence being seen.

The irony here is that the 2010 law being used by the Crown Office to withhold sight of evidence from the Salmond criminal trial was one that he passed as First Minister of Scotland. It was intended to prevent evidence from witnesses, especially in rape and sexual assault cases, being used maliciously to discredit complainants afterwards. However, this law was never intended to prevent such evidence being disclosed under all circumstances.

And no ordinary person could conceivably identify any complainants from Mr Salmond's submission, which makes yesterday's farcical redactions so damaging. Under pressure from the Crown Office, Parliament belatedly removed parts of the testimony, but not before they had been viewed and widely reported for the best part of a day. Everyone with a laptop can now see the censored passages. As a legal foot-shooting exercise, this takes some beating.

Mr Salmond may not be giving his testimony today, but it is out there. He says the Crown Office has censored crucial evidence in order to protect Ms Sturgeon and senior figures in the SNP. He is presumably hoping that, if and when the individuals he has accused seek redress, his defence can be that what he is claiming is true in fact, and can be confirmed by an independent judge reviewing the documentation the Crown Office has kept secret. That would be an interesting test case, to put it mildly.

Read more: Inquiry failed to scratch the surface of an epic scandal

Throughout this saga, many SNP members have retained a certain sympathy for their former leader. But until yesterday few of them bought the full conspiracy theory. They now know that Mr Salmond has sworn evidence of collusion by senior party figures, even if they don't know exactly what it is. Public confidence in the Scottish Government machine and the Crown Office, already wearing thin, has taken another severe knock. Sometimes, censorship can be more incriminating than publication – especially if publication has already happened.

Mr Salmond has also challenged the Scottish Government to deny that it had been told by its lawyers that it was going to lose the 2019 judicial review. He claims Government and SNP officials tried to accelerate his criminal trial in the hope that it would take precedence and that his review into their investigation of his conduct would not be heard. It was. The Scottish Government lost half a million pounds of public money after the Court of Session ruled that it had behaved in a manner “unlawful, unfair and tainted with apparent bias”.

Ms Sturgeon will get the last word, next week. She has privileged access to the BBC and the government machine. She also has the Crown Office, since the Lord Advocate is a member of her Cabinet. She is a master of detail herself, and whatever happens today, she is unlikely to answer Mr Salmond’s call for someone to utter the simple words "I resign”.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald