EDINBURGH: The ex-husband of Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon was jailed for five years and three months on Tuesday, for embezzling more than 400,000 ($529,000) from the pro-independence Scottish National Party.

Peter Murrell pleaded guilty last month after a years-long probe into the party’s finances which shook Scotland’s ruling party and led to several high-profile resignations.

Sturgeon, who denied any knowledge of the crimes and was cleared in the investigation, quit as the head of Scotland’s devolved administration in Edinburgh in February 2023.

Murrell, 61, who was the SNP’s chief executive for over two decades until 2023, was arrested in April of that year after officers searched the house he shared with Sturgeon.

He used the party money to make extravagant, and sometimes bizarre purchases including a motorhome, cars, jewellery, coffee machines, luxury salt and pepper grinders and video games. The offences relate to actions from 2010 to 2022.

Judge James Young, handing down the sentence at the High Court in Edinburgh, told Murrell his actions involved “a significant breach of trust to the organisation which you led and to the individual members and donors of that organisation”.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2026