Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has made a statement outside her house after she was cleared in police investigation into the SNP's finances.
It came almost immediately after news broke that Sturgeon's estranged husband Peter Murrell had appeared in Edinburgh Sheriff Court charged with embezzlement.
He made no plea and was bailed. Murrell will return to court, but no date has been set.
She said being cleared in relation to a police probe into the SNP’s finances is “the outcome I would always have expected”, in a statement outside her home.
Speaking outside her home near Glasgow on Thursday after she was cleared in relation to a police probe into the Scottish National Party’s finances, Sturgeon said: “I am completely in the clear, that is the outcome I would always have expected.
“As I have said to all of you many times, I have done nothing wrong so I was confident of reaching at this point and getting to this outcome.”
Sturgeon said she had a “cloud of investigation hanging over” her during Police Scotland’s long-running Operation Branchform probe into SNP finances.
“For almost two years I have had this cloud of investigation hanging over me,” the former first minister said.
“I think it won’t surprise anybody to hear me say that it’s not been an easy experience, so to reach this point today it is obviously something I am relieved about.
“I’ve been try to get on with my life and I now intend to do that.”
She added there was never a “scrap of evidence” against her in the probe into the SNP’s finances.
“As first minister of this country for the best part of a decade, I have utmost respect for the police and for the prosecution authorities, and I’m never going to say or do anything to undermine that.
“All I can say is that I have done nothing wrong and I don’t think there was a scrap of evidence that I had done anything wrong.
“And therefore, of course, to have something like this hanging over me for almost two years now has been difficult, it’s been frustrating and I don’t think I’m saying anything there that people would be surprised to hear.”
Operation Branchform began in 2021 and investigated what happened to around £600,000 raised by the party for a second independence referendum campaign.
Police said that they had concluded their investigations in statements given earlier this year, but the Crown Office continued its processes.
Murrell was arrested and charged with embezzlement in April 2024.
Sturgeon was also arrested in relation to the same probe, as was Colin Beattie, the party's former treasurer.
Sturgeon announced that she had split from her former husband earlier this year.
