Acquittal reached in sex case

LONDON — Former Scottish leader Alex Salmond was acquitted Monday of a series of sexual offenses, including attempted rape.

An Edinburgh jury deliberated more than five hours before returning not guilty verdicts on 12 charges and a not proven verdict on a charge of sexual assault with intent to rape.

Salmond, 65, had denied all 13 alleged offenses and had claimed that some of the charges were “deliberate fabrications for a political purpose.”

The nine women who brought the charges worked either for the Scottish government or for Salmond’s Scottish National Party at the time the offenses were alleged to have taken place — between June 2008 and November 2014.

The accusations ranged from Salmond stroking a civil servant’s hair to trying to rape a former Scottish government official in the leader’s official residence in Edinburgh.

After leaving the High Court, Salmond thanked his family and friends for standing by him the past two years and said “certain evidence” that wasn’t presented in court will one day “see the light.”