Police question former Ministers in probe into SNP's 'missing' £600,000 trends now
Police have questioned some of Nicola Sturgeon’s most senior Cabinet Ministers as part of their investigation into claims of SNP fraud, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Little more than a year since the arrest of the ex-First Minister’s husband Peter Murrell, detectives have interviewed a handful of members of her former leadership team in a bid to understand a possible culture of secrecy within SNP HQ.
They include those in Ms Sturgeon’s first ever Cabinet in 2014.
Meanwhile, this newspaper understands a new officer has been appointed to oversee Operation Branchform, which insiders claim is an effort to run a ‘fresh pair of eyes’ over the investigation before an official report is handed to the Crown Office.
It will be prosecutors, not police, who will decide if charges are brought. A source yesterday said: ‘A new Senior Investigating Officer was put in charge about three or four months ago to have a proper read across everything.
Peter Murrell and his wife Nicola Sturgeon
‘There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the police and the Crown Office. If police think, based on the sufficiency of evidence, that senior SNP figures should be charged and the Crown Office think they shouldn’t be, for example, Police Scotland would make their thoughts known.
‘There have been interviews done with former Cabinet Ministers who were in position when Ms Sturgeon took over.’
Rumours have swirled at Holyrood that charges could be brought imminently. One source with knowledge of the investigation said: ‘The problem the Crown Office has is we are approaching a General Election, so they will have to make a decision sooner rather than later or wait until after that. It is quite a problem.’
Yet interviews continue. Former Cabinet Ministers who served under Ms Sturgeon have been quizzed as the police attempt to establish if there has been a long-term culture of secrecy surrounding
