UK: Another suspect arrested in hacking probe

[December 07, 2011]  LONDON (AP) -- A 41-year-old man is the latest suspect to be arrested in the U.K.'s tabloid phone-hacking scandal, British police said Wednesday.

London's Metropolitan Police said the man was held on suspicion of conspiring to intercept voicemail messages and pervert the course of justice. It did not release his name, but said he was being held at a police station in south London.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch shut down the News of the World tabloid in July after evidence emerged that it had accessed the mobile phone voicemails of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims in its search for exclusives.

More than a dozen News of the World journalists, including former editor Andy Coulson, have been arrested as the scandal has escalated.

Coulson, who resigned as Prime Minister David Cameron's media adviser when he became embroiled in the investigation, is suing News of the World's publisher for terminating the payment of his legal fees relating to the phone-hacking scandal.

His case against News International subsidiary News Group Newspapers will be heard Wednesday at London's High Court.

Coulson, who left the newspaper in 2007, resigned as Cameron's media adviser in January, saying that coverage of the phone-hacking scandal was making it too difficult for him to do his job.

Two top London police officers and several senior Murdoch executives also have resigned over the scandal, which has led to multiple investigations and damaged Murdoch's empire.

[Associated Press]

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