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| - Former Scottish leader Alex Salmond launched a blistering attack Friday on the government of former protegee Nicola Sturgeon, in a row with potentially huge implications for the country's independence push. Salmond was giving evidence at a hearing into the Scottish administration's botched investigation into 2018 sexual harassment claims against him, which a court later found to be "unlawful" and "tainted by apparent bias". He accuses Sturgeon of misleading the parliament about her role in the investigation, her closest allies of conspiring to have him "imprisoned", and Scotland's prosecution service of working with the government against him. The explosive feud could deal a blow to Sturgeon's hopes of gaining independence from the United Kingdom, which at the moment depend on her Scottish National Party performing well in May's local elections. If she is found to have misled parliament, she could even be forced to resign. "For two years and six months, this has been a nightmare," Salmond told lawmakers. "The failures of leadership are many and obvious. The government acted illegally but somehow no one is to blame." Salmond was arrested in January 2019 and charged with multiple counts of sexual assault -- including attempted rape -- against nine women while he was serving as Scotland's first minister, the job now held by Sturgeon. Salmond was cleared of all 13 charges at a trial last March, where he said the claims were "deliberate fabrications for a political purpose". The most immediate threat to Sturgeon is the accusation that she misled parliament over a meeting between herself and Salmond's former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, in March 2018, when she is said to have first been told about the allegations against Salmond. Sturgeon initially told parliament she only learned of the allegations from Salmond himself a few days later. She later claimed to have "forgotten" about the first meeting. Sturgeon -- riding high in the polls on the back of her handling of the coronavirus outbreak -- is pushing for another referendum on whether Scotland should leave the United Kingdom and become an independent nation. Sturgeon's administration in Edinburgh currently has control over numerous policy areas separately from the central government in London, including health and education. A 2014 referendum in Scotland saw 55 percent vote "no" to independence. However, Sturgeon is hoping a resounding SNP victory in the local elections would provide a mandate that the UK government could not ignore. jwp/kjl
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