Alex Salmond has claimed his private bank records were accessed by a national newspaper.
Giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry in London on Wednesday, the First Minister also revealed he has no evidence to suggest he has been a victim of phone hacking.
But he added that he does believe his bank account was accessed by the Observer newspaper in 1999.
”My reason for believing that is I was informed by a former Observer journalist who gave me a fairly exact account of what was in my bank account that could only have been known to somebody who had seen it,” he said.
Responding to Mr Salmond’s claim, a spokesman for the Observer said: ”We have been unable to find any evidence to substantiate the allegation.”
Mr Salmond, who was SNP leader and an MP at the time, said he had bought toys for his young nieces in a toy shop in Linlithgow, West Lothian, called Fun and Games.
”The person who informed me told me this caused great anticipation and hope in the Observer investigation unit because they believed that perhaps ‘Fun and Games’ was more than a conventional toy shop.”
The revelation came as Mr Salmond defended his relationship with the media mogul Rupert Murdoch in three hours of testimony before Lord Justice Leveson.
He said he had met Rupert Murdoch ”five times in five years” which was ”pretty reasonable” and ”isn’t in the same league as Mr Blair, Mr Brown or Mr Cameron”.
But he staunchly denied any suggestion he had tried to gain favourable coverage in Mr Murdoch’s newspapers by offering to lobby for the controversial takeover bid of BSkyB.
Asked whether he was in favour of News Corporation’s bid to fully own BSkyB, Mr Salmond told the inquiry he supported ”what benefited the Scottish economy”.
He said it was ”perfectly legitimate” to pledge to speak to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt about the deal, but no discussion ever took place.
”I don’t just not accept that there wasn’t an implied deal there wasn’t a deal here,” he added.
Asked if it was true Mr Salmond had offered to call Mr Hunt about the deal ”whenever we need him to”, the First Minister said: ”It’s an encapsulation of what was in a conversation but I had already established the point that I was prepared to make recommendations to the Secretary of State to say that jobs and investment were matters that should be properly considered when the time was right to do that.”
His evidence was criticised by opposition politicians.
Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont branded the testimony ”embarrassing”, adding: ”Alex Salmond admitted he was at Rupert Murdoch’s beck and call and prepared to lobby on his behalf whenever he asked.
”Yet he offered not one scrap of evidence that Scotland benefitted from his closeness to the Murdoch empire.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: ”Mr Salmond failed to provide evidence that he didn’t trade support for News International on phone hacking in return for political support from the Sun and News of the World.
”He put his interests above those of the phone hacking victims.”
Photo by Stefan Rousseau/PA