New arrest in UK phone hacking scandal

A former chief of News of the World questioned on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and corruption.

A copy of the last-ever News of The World
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Britain’s largest newspaper closed when hacking allegations led to multiple arrests and resignations [GALLO/GETTY]

Police investigating phone hacking and police bribery at Britain’s formerly largest selling Sunday newspaper have arrested an eleventh person, believed to be a former newspaper executive.

The Metropolitan Police said they had arrested a 71-year-old man on Tuesday morning at a London police station in connection with the News of the World hacking scandal.

The man was not named, in keeping with British police practice of not identifying suspects who have not been charged, but Sky News, which is 39 per cent owned by the newspaper’s parent company, News Corp, identified the man as former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner.

Kuttner retired in 2009 after 29 years at the newspaper, 22 of them as managing editor.

Police said the man was in custody and being questioned on suspicion of conspiring to intercept phone communications and corruption allegations, which relate to claims that journalists bribed police officers for information.

Detectives investigating claims that the newspaper illegally eavesdropped on the phone messages of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims earlier arrested 10 people, including News Corp’s former British newspaper chief Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, an ex-News of the World editor who went on to be communications chief for Britain’s prime minister.

Coulson was the paper’s editor when royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were arrested and jailed in 2007 for hacking the phones of royal staff.

The newspaper claimed for years that hacking was limited to those two rogue staff, but have now admitted it was more widespread.

All of those earlier arrested have been released on bail and no one has yet been charged.

The 168-year-old News of the World printed its final edition last month in an attempt to contain the spreading scandal, which has forced media mogul and News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch to abandon a bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting and accept the resignations of two top executives, Brooks and Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton.

It has also triggered the resignation of Britain’s two most senior police officers amid claims of too-cozy ties between the London force and News International, Murdoch’s British newspaper division.

Police, who have been criticised for failing to uncover the extent of hacking in their original investigation, are now running parallel inquiries into hacking and police bribery.

Last week they opened a third related investigation to examine allegations of computer hacking.

It follows claims by a former army intelligence officer that an investigator working on behalf of a news organization had hacked his computer using an email containing a Trojan virus, malicious software which can allow outside access to a target’s machine.

Source: News Agencies