Now Salmond's widow takes on his legal battle with ministers over sex probe
Moira Salmond is pursuing the legal action started almost two years ago over a flawed sexual misconduct investigation by the Scottish Government.
The case concerns possible wrongdoing by officials while Nicola Sturgeon was First Minister. Reporting the development, the Sunday Mail said the reclusive 88-year-old had been galvanised by attacks on Mr Salmond in Ms Sturgeon's memoirs, Frankly.
A family friend said Mrs Salmond was 'upset and angered by the continued attempts to smear Alex in the book' with 'ridiculous and inaccurate' allegations.
'It has only strengthened her resolve to make sure the full truth comes out and Alex's name is cleared,' they told the paper.
Now executor of Mr Salmond's estate, his widow has assembled a legal team including a KC and two junior counsel in readiness for a court battle.
The friend added: 'Her case against the government is now live, the legal team is in place, the finance in place and this will be going ahead, no question of that.
'Alex may not be here to defend himself but his family are determined to stand up to those who continue to attack him.'
Ms Sturgeon's book includes disputed claims Mr Salmond had 'consensual affairs', opposed gay marriage and failed to read the 650-page independence white paper.
The MSP also denied there had been any 'conspiracy' to ruin Mr Salmond's reputation – a claim the former Alba Party leader maintained until his death at the age of 69 last October.
Ms Sturgeon said her former mentor 'would have rather destroyed the SNP than see it succeed without him'.
She also claimed he 'impugned the integrity of the institutions at the heart of Scottish democracy – government, police, Crown Office', adding: 'He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all.'
Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond fell out spectacularly in 2018 after it emerged her government had investigated misconduct complaints made against him by two female civil servants.
Mr Salmond had the probe struck down at the Court of Session within months as unfair, unlawful and 'tainted by apparent bias', and was awarded £512,000 in legal costs.
He was later cleared of 13 sexual assault charges at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2020. He launched the Alba Party as a rival to the SNP a year later.
The former First Minister, who admitted he could have behaved better towards women on occasions, had always denied any criminality.
He sued the Scottish Government in November 2023 alleging there had been misfeasance – a knowing abuse of power to harm others – by various civil servants under Ms Sturgeon and sought damages of around £3million.
Promising a 'day of reckoning', he said at the time: 'Not one person has been held accountable. With this court action that evasion of responsibility ends.'
In a Court of Session hearing last August, Mr Salmond's lawyer said the police were probing whether one senior civil servant 'gave a false statement under oath' to a Holyrood inquiry that was probing how the sexual harassment claims were handled.
The action was frozen when Mr Salmond suffered a fatal heart attack in North Macedonia. But Mrs Salmond's legal team is now reactivating proceedings.
A Scottish Tory spokesman said: 'It's hardly surprising Moira Salmond is deeply disappointed that her previous calls for privacy to grieve have been ignored by Nicola Sturgeon.'
Ms Sturgeon's spokesman declined to comment. The Scottish Government said: 'It would not be appropriate to comment on live litigation.'
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