Nicola Sturgeon in clash with MSP over book on Lockerbie bombing

Nicola Sturgeon faced a call to order Scotland’s top law officer to investigate claims made by former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill in his controversial new book about the Lockerbie bombing, at First Minister’s Questions.

Conservative MSP Douglas Ross demanded to know what knowledge Sturgeon had about MacAskill’s book ‘The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search For Justice’ and whether she had discussed the contents of it with him.

Ross said that MacAskill had “reopened old wounds” in the book, which includes claims that there are doubts about the conviction of the only man found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing.

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MacAskill, who took the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds in August 2009, published the book after stepping down as an MSP.

He stated: “I do think there are now doubts upon the conviction and I tend to think that it probably would result in it being found unsafe.”

However, Ross called on Sturgeon to ask the new Lord Advocate James Wolffe to investigate the claims made by MacAskill in his book.

However, Sturgeon dismissed the call from Ross, the Tory justice spokesman at Holyrood, and suggested that the newly elected Highlands and Islands MSP had not been in parliament long enough to understand legal processes.

She said: “The First Minister does not direct the Lord Advocate. That’s pretty fundamental.”

Sturgeon said that she had not read MacAskill’s book yet, but stated that she was sure it would be “interesting.

She also said the contents of the book were “a matter for Kenny” who Sturgeon removed as justice secretary soon after she became First Minister in November 2014.

SNP MSP Christine Grahame also restated her view that Megrahi, who died in May 2012, was not responsible for the 1988 atrocity in Lockerbie in which 270 people were killed.