RIP Alex Salmond,: tributes from colleagues Tommy Sheridan & Hugh Kerr. A 'giant' feared by Sturgeon

Salmond was a 'man of the people' - conference organiser

16 October 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6q8q0j221o

Former First Minister Alex Salmond was a "man of the people" who touched lives across the world, according to the organiser of the conference at which he died.

The Alba leader, 69, collapsed on Saturday at an Academy for Cultural Diplomacy (ACD) event in North Macedonia after suffering a heart attack.

Tributes have been paid to Salmond from across the political spectrum in recent days.

During Prime Ministers' Questions Sir Keir Starmer described him as a "monumental figure in Scottish and UK politics".

ACD director Mark Donfried has returned to North Macedonia from his home in Germany to personally ensure Salmond is repatriated as soon as possible.

He told BBC Scotland News: "I was taught as a I grew up you don't leave any man behind and, here, I definitely feel a responsibility to make sure that everything goes perfectly with the highest level of respect."

Mr Donfried has known Salmond for several years and invited him to the conference at the Inex Olgica hotel, which was attended by dozens of young leaders and delegates from across the world.

The former MP and MSP arrived on Thursday and delivered a speech on Friday.

But after attending a panel event on Saturday he collapsed during lunch and was pronounced dead at 15:30 local time (14:30 BST).

The conference was immediately cancelled but delegates gathered less than four hours later to process his sudden loss.

Images showed some at the attendees in tears as stories were shared about Salmond's life and career.

Mr Donfried said: "That was a moment to give thanks for all that Alex had given to everyone in that room and beyond.

"The echoing effects of his legacy will hopefully live on for a very, very long time."

He also recalled how Salmond connected with a wide range of audiences and praised his "generosity of spirit"......

Alex led an extremely tight and efficient SNP government of Scotland from 2007–2014 which had a long list of social accomplishments to be proud of and established Scotland as a more left-wing polity than England, with no tuition fees, free social care for the elderly, better childcare, free NHS prescriptions etc.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/10/alex-salmond-always-my-hero/

His weakness was that he was over-trustful and did not see the British security services coming. I know, because he told me, that Alex regretted allowing Angus Robertson to force through an amendment to SNP party policy in favour of Scotland remaining in NATO. Ironically, Alex did so because he thought it would pre-empt and buy off the US and UK security services, when of course they were actually behind it.

I do not pretend I had more than a nodding acquaintance with Alex before the plot to destroy him came to fruition. When he summoned me to meet him urgently on a cold, damp Edinburgh night I was delighted to go to see my hero. What he told me dropped my jaw.

But what stays with me most about that evening, in a bedroom of the George Hotel in Edinburgh, is that what he told me made it absolutely obvious that the plot against him was initiated in and directed from Nicola Sturgeon’s office. He was plainly in huge emotional pain over this.

He was also focused on Liz Lloyd, whom he believed to be an MI5 agent. He said that Lloyd had no connection to Scottish Independence and had initially been placed inside the SNP as an intern to an MP (or MSP, I forget) by a British Government graduate training scheme.

If you want to revisit today the conspiracy against Alex Salmond, I do recommend you read my affidavits in my own contempt of court hearing (as redacted for publication by the Crown Office).

The state deemed these affidavits so dangerous that Scotland’s corrupt judiciary quite literally ruled that they do not exist at all. They are “so evidently untrue as not to require cross-examination”. They were not accepted as evidence in my own case for which they were my evidence, which is truly remarkable. I was jailed with my evidence not even considered, or tested, as “self-evidently untrue”.