FORMER justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has claimed “dark forces” were involved in the trial of Alex Salmond.

The MP alleged there had been an “orchestrated campaign” by senior people in the Scottish Government and SNP.

MacAskill, who has represented the East Lothian constituency for the SNP since the December election, accused prosecutors of pursuing “utter bunkum” charges and said the police had began an inquiry of “gargantuan proportions” while complaining about tight budgets.

He added the downfall of Gordon Jackson QC, who had been Salmond’s lead lawyer in the case, could have been part of a wider conspiracy against Scotland’s former first minister. Jackson announced his intention to resign as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates just days after the trial when a video emerged of him allegedly naming two of the accusers in the Salmond case on public transport.

The National:

MacAskill (above), writing in the Scottish Left Review, said what happened to the lawyer seemed “more than accidental”.

He wrote: “It certainly seems that, as well as the poison and prejudice of a few, there were other ‘dark forces’ operating.”

MacAskill went on: “The Alex Salmond case was entirely unprecedented. For sure there have been major Scottish criminal trials from Oscar Slater through Lockerbie to numerous recent ones. But despite the notoriety of many and the horror of their crimes, none had the profile of Alex Salmond.”

The MP also compared Salmond to Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish nationalist leader who was felled by an adultery scandal during the 1800s.

He wrote that not since that figure “had there been the chance to bring down a major figure in an independence movement and no doubt with it to damage the cause.

“The fall-out from it is going to reverberate for some time within the SNP and - as a result - in both the independence movement and Scottish politics as a whole.”

READ MORE: Jim Sillars says SNP may have to quit after Alex Salmond's book

The former first minister was acquitted of 13 charges of sexual assault after a trial at the High Court last month and has suggested he was the victim of a politically motivated plot. He is writing a book on the experience, but this could not be submitted to the court for legal reasons.

MacAskill’s comments come after former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars said Salmond’s new book will be like a “volcanic eruption” for the party.

Sillars said the “rot” left in the party might be so bad the Yes movement might need to create a new party in response.