First Minister Alex Salmond is set to face questions at Holyrood over his dealings with media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The SNP leader has come under fire after it was suggested he would lobby the UK Culture Secretary on behalf of the Murdochs.
His relationship with the News Corporation chairman was questioned again on Tuesday, in light of a House of Commons report which said Mr Murdoch was not "a fit person" to run a major international corporation.
With Holyrood not sitting on Thursday because of the local government elections, Mr Salmond will face questions on Wednesday afternoon.
Opposition leaders claimed that the report by the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee into the News of the World phone hacking scandal again raises questions about Mr Salmond's judgment.
Mr Murdoch, who met Mr Salmond in February 2012, was accused by MPs on the committee of exhibiting "wilful blindness" towards the wrongdoing in his organisation.
After that Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont demanded: "What we need to know is why Alex Salmond thinks that Rupert Murdoch is still a fit and proper person to run media in this country."
Meanwhile, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie claimed the "damning" report by the committee "further calls into question the First Minister's judgment".
Mr Salmond argued on Tuesday that it was not for a "politically divided committee of MPs" to determine who is fit to run a major news organisation.
He also said the Leveson inquiry into press standards had a remit to investigate Scotland, after Labour MP Tom Watson had urged the First Minister to establish an inquiry into phone hacking at Holyrood, to determine "how and why MSPs were targeted".
Both former First Minister Jack McConnell and Nationalist MSP Joan McAlpine, an aide to the SNP leader, have said they may be victims of phone hacking.
Mr Salmond said on Tuesday night: "The question of who is a fit person to run a major news organisation should be judged by independent authorities like Lord Leveson and by the scrutiny of an independent statutory body like Ofcom, rather than a politically divided committee of MPs split on party lines. That is where responsibility for any recommendations should lie.
"Indeed that is the whole point of the Leveson inquiry which has been charged with looking at these issues."
He added: "In terms of the suggestion of a separate Scottish inquiry, the Scottish justice system does not need any lectures from Tom Watson who seems unaware of the fact that the Leveson inquiry includes Scotland within its remit, and the fact that a Strathclyde Police special unit are currently investigating allegations of criminality in Scotland.
"That investigation will proceed wherever the evidence leads, without fear or favour, to ensure Scottish citizens are afforded the proper protection of the criminal law. And in Scotland, I am confident the criminal law will be upheld."
Comments
There are 4 comments