Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who dominated politics in Scotland for years, was arrested Sunday by police investigating the finances of the governing, pro-independence Scottish National Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police Scotland said a 52-year-old woman was detained \u201cas a suspect in connection with the ongoing investigatn into the funding and finances of the Scottish National Party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe woman is in custody and is being questioned by Police Scotland detectives,\u201d the force said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.K. police do not name suspects until they are charged. The BBC and other media outlets identified the arrested woman as Sturgeon. The party did not immediately comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scottish police have been investigating how 600,000 pounds ($745,000) designated for a Scottish independence campaign was spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Party treasurer Colin Beattie and former chief executive Peter Murrell were arrested previously and questioned as part of the investigation. Neither has been charged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murrell is Sturgeon\u2019s husband<\/strong>, and police searched the couple\u2019s home in Glasgow after his arrest in April. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sturgeon unexpectedly resigned<\/strong> in February after eight years as Scottish National Party leader and first minister of Scotland\u2019s semi-autonomous government. She said that it was the right time for her, her party and her country to make way for someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sturgeon left office<\/strong> amid divisions in the SNP and with her main goal \u2014 independence from the U.K. for the nation of 5.5 million people \u2014 unmet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scottish voters backed remaining in the U.K. in a 2014 referendum that was billed as a once-in-a-generation decision. The party wants a new vote, but the U.K. Supreme Court has ruled that Scotland can\u2019t hold one without London\u2019s consent. The central government has refused to authorize another referendum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sturgeon\u2019s departure unleashed a tussle for the future of the SNP amid recriminations over the party\u2019s declining membership and divisions about the best path towards independence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who dominated politics in Scotland for years, was arrested Sunday by police investigating the finances of the governing, pro-independence Scottish National Party. Police Scotland said a 52-year-old woman was detained \u201cas a suspect in connection with the ongoing investigatn into the funding and finances of the Scottish National Party.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":27584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6975,2735,10387,9784,10507,9387,9127,10196,3577,6746,2264,8601,10197,3684,4435,11973,421,5424,9036,7400,5151,9037,10198,3240,5150,1825,5273,594],"class_list":["post-35053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-arrest","tag-bbc","tag-campaign","tag-charged","tag-court","tag-detained","tag-february","tag-first-minister","tag-future","tag-glasgow","tag-government","tag-independence","tag-investigation","tag-london","tag-nicola-sturgeon","tag-one","tag-police","tag-politics","tag-pounds","tag-referendum","tag-scotland","tag-scottish","tag-scottish-national-party","tag-snp","tag-sturgeon","tag-supreme-court","tag-woman","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51013,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35053\/revisions\/51013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}