Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was released without charge on Sunday after being detained hours earlier and questioned as part of an inquiry into the finances of the Scottish National Party (SNP).
Scottish police said in a statement that the 52-year-old woman, arrested in the morning, was in custody between 10:09 a.m. and 5:24 p.m. local time (the same time in Lisbon).
The authorities are trying to clarify the destination of the 600,000 pounds (700,000 euros) that the SNP raised to finance a new referendum on independence, a case for which Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, was also arrested and released in April.
Nicola Sturgeon headed the Scottish Government and led the SNP between 2014 and February 2023, when she surprisingly announced her resignation from both positions, giving way to a change in the party, whose leadership Humza Yousaf took over at the end of March.
Weeks after her resignation, her husband Peter Murrell, the SNP’s chief executive for nearly 20 years, and former treasurer Colin Beattie, who resigned after his release, were arrested.
The chairman of the Conservative Party in Scotland, Craig Hoy, has called for Sturgeon’s suspension as an MP following her arrest, a call joined by the nationalist SNP MP for Westminster, Angus MacNeil.
Sturgeon was released without charge after more than seven hours of interrogation, although the case, open since 2021, is still “pending new investigations”, as reported by the Police, who will now send a report to the Public Ministry.
The arrest announcement was published by the Scottish National Police on the social network Twitter, in relation to a 52-year-old woman, referring to Sturgeon, whose identity was verified by BBC Scotland.
UK police do not identify suspects until they are charged. The BBC and other outlets identified the arrested woman as Sturgeon.
Source: TSF
