July 7, 2011 / by emptywheel

 

Guardian: Andy Coulson to Be Arrested in Hacking Scandal

The Guardian is reporting that former News of the World editor and David Cameron flack Andy Coulson received notice today to show up at a London police station to be arrested tomorrow.

Andy Coulson has been told by police that he will be arrested on Friday morning over suspicions that he knew about, or had direct involvement in, the hacking of mobile phones during his editorship of the News of the World.

The Guardian understands that a second arrest is also to be made in the next few days of a former senior journalist at the paper.

Leaks from News International forced police to speed up their plans to arrest the two key suspects in the explosive phone-hacking scandal.

The Guardian knows the identity of the second suspect but is witholding the name in order to avoid prejudicing the ongoing police investigation.

[snip]

Evidence leading to the two imminent arrests has come from a cache of emails recently uncovered during NI’s internal investigation into phone hacking.

[snip]

The Guardian understands that NI had promised the police not to reveal the existence of evidence identifying Coulson and the other journalist, but that detectives began to fear the information would be leaked, after reports appeared suggesting that Coulson approved payments to police officers.

So not only has News International known that Coulson was in trouble, but someone has leaked tidbits of it.

I’m not sure closing News of the World is going to help News Corp–or Scotland Yard–avoid this much longer.

Copyright © 2011 emptywheel. All rights reserved.
Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2011/07/07/guardian-andy-coulson-to-be-arrested-in-hacking-scandal/