LONDON - Detectives investigating phone hacking and police bribery at defunct British tabloid the News of the World arrested the newspaper’s former managing editor yesterday, police and British media said.
He is the latest in a string of executives to be questioned about wrongdoing at the muckraking Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper.
The Metropolitan Police said a 71-year-old man had been arrested by appointment at a London police station. They did not name him in keeping with the British police practice of not identifying suspects who have not been charged.
Sky News, which is 39 percent owned by the newspaper’s parent company,
News International - Murdoch’s British newspaper division - would not confirm the man’s identity.
Police said he was being questioned on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications - phone hacking - and on suspicion of corruption, which relates to claims that journalists bribed police officers for information. He was released on bail pending further questioning later this month, police said.
Detectives investigating claims the newspaper illegally eavesdropped on the phone messages of celebrities, politicians, and even crime victims have previously arrested 10 people, including Murdoch’s former British newspaper chief Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, an ex-News of the World editor who became Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications chief.
No one has yet been charged.
