Alex Salmond has further fuelled claims of a conspiracy to bring him down by suggesting that someone in Nicola Sturgeons office may have leaked the allegations of sexual harassment against him.
The former first minister has raised fresh questions in evidence shared with the Scottish parliament committee investigating how complaints against him were mishandled by the Scottish government.
He said investigations by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) indicated that details of the claims were known to some Scottish government officials as far back as January 2018. However, they only leaked to a tabloid newspaper in August that year, days after they were passed to Sturgeons office.
The first minister has dismissed any notion of a conspiracy to prevent a political comeback by her former boss
