ALEX Salmond asked MSPs to seek documents from his lawyer that the Crown Office refused to give them as he answered questions about claims by senior SNP figures which he had earlier said included efforts to send him to prison.

The former First Minister said the files could be with them by Monday after he made the suggestion to the Holyrood committee at the end of around six hours of questioning yesterday.

During the marathon session he repeatedly made reference to being constrained by what he could say because of threats of prosecution against him and also spoke throughout of “a deliberate suppression of evidence inconvenient to the Scottish Government”.

Concluding his oral evidence, he said: “Hitherto you’ve been serving orders on a parliament on people who have been unwilling to give you information.

“Can I suggest that you use your powers under the Scotland Act – and it’s a matter for this committee – to serve that order on my solicitors, who are extremely willing to give you information?

“If you do so then I am sure you will get full co-operation under the law from my solicitors.

“Furthermore, if we’re on a roll here, then the information of the letters from the Crown Office preventing me from furnishing you with that information hitherto is something you might also like to request under the same powers of the Scotland Act and any information which Mr Wightman has come up with today which would also be of assistance to the committee.”

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In his written evidence, published by the committee last Monday, Salmond did not use the word “conspiracy” or “plot” but said he was “very clear” that the evidence supports “a deliberate, prolonged, malicious and concerted effort amongst a range of individuals within the Scottish Government and the SNP to damage my reputation, even to the extent of having me imprisoned”.

He added: “That includes, for the avoidance of doubt, Peter Murrell (chief executive), Ian McCann (compliance officer) and Sue Ruddick (chief operating officer) of the SNP together with Liz Lloyd, the First Minister’s chief of staff.

“There are others who, for legal reasons, I am not allowed to name.”

He said in the written submission that the “most obvious and compelling evidence” was contained in material that the Crown Office refused to release.

He said: “That decision is frankly disgraceful. Refusing to allow the committee to see that material both denies me the opportunity to put the full truth before the committee and the public and makes it impossible for the committee to complete its task on a full sight of the relevant material.

“The only beneficiaries of that decision to withhold evidence are those involved in conduct designed to damage (and indeed imprison) me.”

During the hearing, Salmond built a case which he believed showed suppression of evidence by the authorities. He said the Crown Office told Kenny MacAskill last July there were no messages from Murrell – who is married to Nicola Sturgeon – pressuring the police to investigate him. Murrell admitted sending texts to colleagues which appeared to show him urging colleagues to go to the police.

MacAskill has said he was sent the messages anonymously and had passed them to prosecutors and the Holyrood inquiry.

The messages appear to show Murrell backing prosecution action against Salmond in January 2019, the month he won a civil legal battle against Sturgeon’s government and was separately charged with multiple counts of sexual assault, for which he was later acquitted on all charges after a trial last year.

Salmond pointed to other messages including one from the Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans to senior civil servant Barbara Allison – which said “battle maybe lost but not the war” – on the day the judicial review was lost by the Government. “In my opinion there has been behaviour which is about, not just pressurising the police like the one you’ve read out, but pressuring witnesses, collusion over witnesses,” Salmond said.

Sturgeon has denied there was a conspiracy against Salmond and she will give evidence to the committee next week. The committee is holding an inquiry into the Government’s investigation into complaints made against Salmond, which a judicial review found was unlawful, unfair and “tainted by apparent bias”.