NICOLA Sturgeon wrote a letter to the former SNP depute leader after he claimed she breached the ministerial code at a Scottish Government coronavirus briefing.

Jim Sillars wrote to the permanent secretary on February 25 to lodge a complaint, claiming that the First Minister broke the rules by lodging a “sustained attack” on Alex Salmond during the Covid-19 conference.

Sillars alleged “it is a breach of the ministerial code to allow, and then use, a public health Covid briefing to launch an attack on Mr. Salmond in the context of matters arising from the parliamentary inquiry”.

A Holyrood committee is currently looking into the Scottish Government’s handling of harassment complaints against the former First Minister, which was found to be unlawful in a judicial review.

READ MORE: Alex Salmond hits out at Nicola Sturgeon for using Covid briefing to attack him

Salmond was acquitted on all charges at the High Court last year. In his evidence to the inquiry Salmond has alleged a “malicious” attempt to remove him from public life and named those he believes were involved, including Peter Murrell and Sturgeon’s chief of staff.

During a briefing on February 24, Sturgeon criticised Salmond and claimed he was peddling conspiracy theories, despite previously saying the sessions should only be for information to be delivered about the pandemic.

She also told the briefing: “The behaviour complained of was found by a jury not to constitute criminal conduct and Alex Salmond is innocent of criminality, but that doesn’t mean that the behaviour they complained of didn’t happen and I think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of that.”

Speaking before the inquiry on the Scottish Government handling of harassment complaints made against the former First Minister yesterday, Alex Salmond said he had watched the press conference in “astonishment”.

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In his letter to the permanent secretary Sillars wrote: “It is not for me to question a decision by the First Minister to make a public attack on Mr. Salmond.

“But if she wished to do so, then she could have arranged a press conference on the subject, which would have been the proper and legitimate forum in which to do so. Abusing the Government Covid briefing was neither proper or legitimate. That is where the code has been breached," he alleged.

He also expressed concern over Sturgeon’s reference to the criminal trial. Sillars claimed:  “Those were weasel words employed by the First Minister, and any reasonable person would draw more than an inference from them that the jury was wrong.”

Sillars went on: “I have been in public life for over 60 years, and in the course of it studied how heads of state and governments in the democracies have behaved in office. I cannot recall one single incident when the head of a government so egregiously questioned the verdict of a jury, or event thought it a proper and legitimate discharge of their duty to do so.”

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The First Minister responded to Sillar’s letter by email on February 25, the same day it was sent.

In her response she says she has “made every attempt to restrict the focus of my daily briefings to responding to the pandemic”.

“However, and quite properly, we do not seek to vet the questions put to me by journalists. I had no prior knowledge that a number of journalists were intending to ask me about Mr Salmond. It is therefore quite incorrect for you to suggest that this was in some way a ‘deliberate choice’ on my part. Nothing could be further from the truth."

She went on: “Indeed, I was at pains to move the questioning back onto issues relating to Covid as soon as I could. If I had refused to answer these questions I would doubtless have been criticised for avoiding scrutiny.”

READ MORE: Alex Salmond claims First Minister’s leadership has failed Scotland

The First Minister also denied she was “casting doubt on the outcome of the criminal trial”.

She wrote: “I have never, and would never, call into question the jury’s findings, which I fully respect. In fact, I have spent the last few days protecting the independence of the prosecution service from some really rather disgraceful, politically motivated attacks that do a disservice to all of us who care about these matters.”

Sturgeon denied breaching the code. “Despite your allegations, I am clear that I did not breach the ministerial code. Of course, the most appropriate place for me to be questioned about these matters is in front of the parliamentary committee. And I look forward, at long last, to appearing before the committee next week when I can lay out the facts of what happened rather than the spurious and unfounded conspiracies that others choose to misrepresent as the truth for their own ends.”

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon did not breach ministerial code, Ian Blackford says

The letter came after Salmond told yesterday’s meeting that he believes Sturgeon has breached the ministerial code.

This accusation is based on when she knew about allegations of harassment made against her predecessor.

Sturgeon told MSPs she first learned of the claims at a meeting in her home with Salmond on April 2 2018, but it later emerged she had been told four days earlier by his former chief of staff Geoff Aberdein at a meeting in her office, which she claimed to have forgotten.

The First Minister referred herself for investigation to James Hamilton QC, an independent adviser on the ministerial code.

Despite calls for the First Minister to stand down if she is found to have breached the code, SNP Westminster leader Blackford has thrown his support behind his party leader.

“She’s made it clear on a number of occasions that she does not believe she has broken the ministerial code,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme today.

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“I believe that to be the case as well, this will be put to bed, and we will be able to move on from it to make sure we are dealing with the Covid crisis in the right way, and we’re having that discussion about what Scotland’s future is.

“I and my party have full confidence in the First Minister leading us to that destination of Scotland becoming an independent country.”

He added: “Yesterday was supposed to be a seminal day in this inquiry where the former first minister was going to bring forward evidence of a conspiracy – by his own admission, there is no evidence of a conspiracy by the First Minister against him.

“I think we’ve had a number of false dawns in this whole spectacle and I do not believe under any circumstances, under any determination, that the First Minister has broken the ministerial code.”

Blackford also refused to say whether Sturgeon should resign if she is found to have broken the rules, describing the question as “hypothetical”.

Last night a spokesperson for Sturgeon said: “Today was Alex Salmond’s chance to provide proof of the conspiracy which has been alleged – and he did not do so. Instead, under oath, he explicitly conceded there was no such evidence against the First Minister, and also gave testimony which directly undermined some of the central planks of the conspiracy theories.”