pleaded guilty<\/a> this week to embezzling the sum from the SNP between 2010 and 2022 to fund a lavish personal lifestyle.<\/p>\nThe 61-year-old spent the money on items including a luxury motor home, a Jaguar SUV and a VW Golf, boutique cosmetics, iPads and a Lalique Feuilles salt and pepper set worth \u00a32,618.<\/p>\n
He will be sentenced in June, the same month that the SNP faces two UK parliamentary byelections \u2013 one in Aberdeen South and another in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry.<\/p>\n
The SNP has faced calls for an independent inquiry into its finances. Sturgeon was Scotland\u2019s first minister from 2014 to 2023 while Murrell served as the party\u2019s chief executive from 2001 to 2023.<\/p>\n
In an interview on the BBC\u2019s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Sturgeon said she was \u201cnot going to apologise for somebody else\u2019s crimes\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cFor my own sake, but for the sake of people out there, a lot of women who end up finding themselves blamed for the actions of the men in their lives, I\u2019m not going to contribute to that kind of sense that I am responsible for somebody else\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will take responsibility for the things I do, the decisions I make. I\u2019m sitting here with you right now, answering questions because I believe strongly in that accountability. But I am not responsible for the crimes that my former husband committed and I\u2019m not going to apologise for somebody else\u2019s crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sturgeon, 55, has consistently denied knowledge of Murrell\u2019s crimes and was not charged after a police investigation. The former first minister previously said she had been \u201ccompletely cleared and exonerated\u201d by police and that she had been lied to by her former husband.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Sturgeon said her former husband had \u201cperpetrated a crime on the SNP\u201d, adding: \u201cBy definition, that included me as the party leader. He misled. He deceived.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is serving and will be serving a sentence for a crime he committed. I\u2019m out here feeling as if I\u2019m serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Hay festival in Powys on Friday, Sturgeon said: \u201cMy picture has been on more front pages in Scotland this week than my former husband\u2019s has, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she had been contacted by a number of women last week who had been \u201cbetrayed\u201d by their husbands and that she was \u201cdetermined to carry on\u201d, adding: \u201cI\u2019ve done nothing wrong. So I\u2019m not going to hide away. And that\u2019s why I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicola Sturgeon has said feels like she is \u201cserving a sentence for a crime I did not commit\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-613497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}