by Alex Salmond “fell ill and died at the scene” of a suspected massive heart attack, police said.
“Time stopped” when the former First Minister of Scotland fell back in his chair and was caught by a fellow speaker at a diplomatic conference in North Macedonia at around 3.30pm on Saturday, delegates said.
Attempts were made to revive Mr Salmond, 69, with CPR, but when paramedics arrived they concluded there was nothing that could be done to save him.
Friends and family in Scotland, who accompanied him to the event in the city of Ohrid, were informed of his death by Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, a former SNP MP and close associate of Mr Salmond.
Sources close to Mr Salmond described a race to inform his 87-year-old wife, Moira, of his death before the news broke publicly.
Local police confirmed that Mr Salmond died instantly, according to a statement issued by North Macedonia’s interior ministry. Prosecutors have ordered an autopsy, and the cause of death has not yet been officially determined.
North Macedonian media also reported that they understood he had died of a massive heart attack, and Mr Salmond’s friends said they believed he had suffered a “massive coronary”.
Chris McEleny, general secretary of the Scottish Party, which Mr Salmond led, arrived in Macedonia on Sunday to help repatriate his body, and is expected to be flown home by the RAF.
Mr Salmond had taken part in a panel discussion at the conference on Friday, where he arrived in good spirits. Mark Donfried, one of the organizers of the conference, said the delegates were left in a state of shock when he died.
“Really, time stopped,” he said. “Suddenly at lunchtime he was sitting across [from me]. He fell, was sitting and fell back into the arms of one of the other speakers.
“I immediately went to the front desk to ask for an ambulance, and by the time I came back he was on the floor trying CPR. The good news is that he did not suffer. I don’t think he felt any pain.”
In some of his last public statements, the day before he died, Mr Salmond accused the EU of secretly conspiring with the UK Government against Scottish independence.
He said that Jose Manuel Barroso, the former president of the European Commission, was “not at all helpful to Scotland” in the run-up to the 2014 referendum.
Ahead of the vote, Mr Barroso warned that it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible” for an independent Scotland to join the EU in a major blow to Mr Salmond’s Yes campaign.
Mr Salmond also suggested that an alleged covert partnership between the UK and the EU against his campaign was backfired because the Brexit vote came indirectly less than two years later.
“It is a reasonable possibility that if Scotland had voted for independence, then, two years later, England would not have voted to leave the European Union,” he told delegates. “So the interesting thing is that while Scotland missed an opportunity, the UK has declined.
“The European Union of that time, President Barroso in particular, was not helpful at all to Scotland. Indeed, [he] to be secretly linked to the UK Government.
“What happened as a result was that the UK, one of the major players in the European Union, left 18 months later. So in many ways it was a bad outcome for Europe as a whole.”
Mr Salmond had earlier joked about the Scots’ reputation for ambition to international audiences, warning them he would not be buying anyone lunch because “I’m Scottish after all, we don’t do things like this “.
John Swinney, the current First Minister, said Mr Salmond inspired a generation to believe in independence and “left a fundamental mark on Scottish politics”.
After a series of sexual misconduct allegations, Mr Salmond fell out with Nicola Sturgeon, his former protégé, and left the SNP in 2018.
She said that while she could not “pretend” their omission did not happen, Mr Salmond would be remembered for his achievements and was shocked and saddened to learn of his death.
However, Mr Salmond died after some of his former allies in the SNP believed they had conspired to jail him, and his supporters vowed to continue fighting to clear his name.
He was acquitted of a series of sexual misconduct charges at trial in 2020 and had a Civil Service investigation into the allegations which he ruled were illegal and “tainted by apparent bias”.
Former SNP MP and KC Joanna Cherry claimed Mr Salmond had been “stabbed in the back” by his former friends before his death, but that pending court cases would restore his reputation.
“We are innocent until proven guilty in this country, and I am very disappointed as a lawyer at the lack of respect for the jury’s verdict in Alex’s criminal charges,” Ms Cherry told BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show.
“I think it’s a terrible tragedy that Alex died before he could fully defend it, but I believe that time will tell to defend his name.”
In his final public remarks, posted X hours before his death, Mr Salmond launched a scathing attack on Mr Swinney for participating in Sir Keir Starmer’s Council of Nations and Regions on Friday.
He claimed the company had “regional status” for the “Scottish nation” and that Mr Swinney should be boycotted. His final comment was: “Scotland is a country, not a county.”
