Former Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon cleared in embezzlement probe that saw her ex-husband charged

LONDON — Nicola Sturgeon, the former leader of Scotland, has been cleared of wrongdoing over the finances of the governing Scottish National Party, police said Thursday. Her ex-husband, the party’s former chief executive, has been charged with embezzlement.

Police Scotland said Sturgeon and former party treasurer Colin Beattie are no longer under investigation as part of a probe into how more than 600,000 pounds ($780,000) designated for a Scottish independence campaign was spent.

Both were arrested and questioned almost two years ago, and had been released on bail since then.

Sturgeon said it had been difficult to have “this cloud of investigation hanging over me” for almost two years.

‘‘I have done nothing wrong and I don’t think there was a scrap of evidence that I had done anything wrong,‘’ she told reporters outside her Glasgow home. ‘’I’ve been trying to get on with my life and I now intend to do that.‘’

Former party chief Peter Murrell appeared in an Edinburgh court on Thursday on one count of embezzlement, after being charged in April 2024. Murrell, 60, did not enter a plea and was released on bail while the legal process continues.

Murrell and Sturgeon married in 2010, and announced in January they were divorcing.

Sturgeon, 54, dominated Scottish politics for almost a decade before she unexpectedly resigned in 2023 after eight years as first minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government.

Sturgeon led her party to dominance in Scottish politics and refashioned the SNP from a largely one-issue party into a dominant governing force with liberal social positions. She guided her party during three U.K.-wide elections and two Scottish elections, and led Scotland through the coronavirus pandemic, winning praise for her clear, measured communication style.

But Sturgeon left office amid divisions in the SNP without meeting her main goal — independence from the United Kingdom for the nation of 5.5 million people.

Since then, the party has seen its membership fall and its popularity slump. It remains in control of Scotland’s government, but lost most of its seats in the British Parliament in July’s U.K. election, going from 48 lawmakers to just nine.

It is highly unusual for a leader or former leader of a U.K. political party to be arrested, and Sturgeon’s arrest shocked the country. The last such case also involved an SNP leader — Sturgeon’s predecessor as first minister, Alex Salmond, was arrested in 2019 and charged with a series of sexual offenses, including attempted rape.

Salmond was acquitted on all 13 charges after a trial in January 2020 and died later that year, in October, aged 69.

In 1979, former Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe went on trial, accused of conspiracy and incitement to murder former model Norman Scott. Scott claimed they had a sexual relationship in the early 1960s, when homosexuality was illegal.

Years later, in 1975, Scott and his dog were attacked on a remote moor, and the Great Dane was shot dead. Thorpe denied involvement and was acquitted. He died in 2014.