sentences:  Following the 2007 Scottish election, newly elected SNP First Minister Alex Salmond appointed Mulholland to succeed Labour Party member John Beckett as Solicitor General, the junior of the two Law Officers of the Crown in Scotland.Beckett, who had been junior defence counsel for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in the Lockerbie trial, was subsequently appointed a floating sheriff.The SNP government said at the time that they believed Mulholland to have no political affiliation.