筹集资金涉嫌搞独立 前苏格兰领导人被捕

Nicola Sturgeon, the former leader of Scotland, was arrested over the weekend.

苏格兰前领导人妮古拉·斯特金上周末被捕。

She says the experience was, quote, "deeply distressing."

她说，这段经历“非常痛苦”。

Scotland is part of the U.K. but has its own legislature.

苏格兰是英国的一部分，但有自己的立法机构。

Until a few months ago, Sturgeon was its leader as the head of a party that favored full independence.

直到几个月前，斯特金还是一个支持完全独立的政党的领袖。

But her party is under investigation for what it did with pro-independence campaign donations.

不过，她领导的政党因处理支持独立的竞选捐款而正在接受调查。

Reporter Willem Marx is following all this. Hey there.

记者威廉·马克思正在跟踪报道。嘿，你好。

Hey, Steve.

嗨, 史蒂夫。

How did the arrest work?

逮捕是如何进行的?

Well, in terms of the actual arrest, we know that she agreed ahead of time with Scottish police to be interviewed and was then arrested and questioned after she arrived for that interview.

嗯，就实际的逮捕而言，我们知道她事先同意接受苏格兰警方的问询，然后在她到达问询地点后被逮捕和审问。

It's part of this two-year investigation into the finances of the Scottish National Party focused on almost $1 million worth of donations by party activists that had been essentially earmarked for future pro-independence campaigning.

这是对苏格兰民族党为期两年的财政调查的一部分，调查的重点是该党活动人士提供的价值近100万美元的捐款，这些捐款基本上已指定用于未来支持独立的竞选活动。

And there are questions about what exactly happened to that money.

而这笔捐款到底去哪儿了也有疑问。

Three people had been signing off on the party's accounts, the former CEO, who happens to be Sturgeon's husband who stepped down from that role before his own arrest earlier this year, the party's treasurer, who was also arrested then released earlier this year before resigning from that post, and now Sturgeon herself, who, let's not forget, has dominated Scottish politics for the best part of a decade, with some eight years as the country's first minister.

有三个人在该党的账目上签字。第一位是前首席执行官，他恰好是斯特金的丈夫，在今年早些时候被捕之前辞去了该职位; 第二位是该党的财务主管，他今年早些时候也曾被捕，后被释放，之后辞去了该职位; 第三位是斯特金本人，我们不要忘记，她在十年的大部分时间里主导着苏格兰政治，担任了大约八年的苏格兰首席部长。

I think I understand this a little better.

我想我对此有了更好的理解。

She said she was stunned by the arrest. And you're telling me that she did voluntarily go to the police station but may not have expected to be arrested while she was there for an interview, is that right?

她表示她对这次逮捕感到震惊。你是说她是自愿去警局的，但她可能没料到会在警局接受问讯时被逮捕，对吗?

Absolutely right. Yeah.

完全正确。是的。

OK. So what does this arrest mean for independence efforts in Scotland?

好。那么，这次逮捕对苏格兰的独立运动意味着什么？

Well, you know, the party's already faced a huge amount of pressure both from supporters and political opponents even before this happened.

嗯，你知道，甚至在逮捕发生前，该党已经面临来自支持者和政治对手的巨大压力。

Sturgeon's decision to step down as leader earlier this year sparked a leadership contest that was pretty divisive.

今年早些时候，斯特金决定辞去领导人职务，引发了一场相当分裂的领导权竞争。

The ongoing investigations completely overshadowed her successor Humza Yousaf's efforts to reunify the party.

正在进行的调查完全掩盖了她的继任者哈姆扎·优素福为统一该党所做的努力。

And in fact, there are now members of the SNP itself demanding that Sturgeon be suspended from the party.

事实上，现在苏格兰民族党内部也有成员要求停止斯特金的党籍。

She's still a sitting member of the Scottish Parliament, insisted that her release - she'd return to work soon after that.

她仍是苏格兰议会的现任议员，坚持要求释放她，她很快就会回去工作。

Part of the problem underlying all this is a challenging financial position for the party.

这一切背后的部分问题是该党面临的严峻财政状况。

The funds at question in this inquiry were for any future pro-independence referendum.

此次调查中涉及的资金将用于未来支持独立的公投。

The widely held expectation had been the party would continue pushing for this, even though legal avenues to make that happen have been pretty much exhausted.

人们普遍认为该党将继续推动这一进程，尽管实现这一目标的法律途径几乎已经用尽。

But these events around the party's top leaders or former top leaders may well make it very hard for the SNP to raise funds from supporters in the future.

但这些围绕该党最高领导人或前最高领导人的事件可能会使苏格兰民族党在未来很难从支持者那里筹集资金。