BRITISH POLICE HAVE arrested a journalist and a policeman for alleged corruption as a result of information provided by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, Scotland Yard has confirmed.
London’s Metropolitan Police said the male journalist, 37, and the policeman, 29, had been arrested in dawn raids over the suspected bribery of a police officer. It did not name either man.
The pair were detained under Operation Elveden, one of three investigations sparked by the phone-hacking scandal that closed Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid last July.
Police said the arrests came as a result of information provided to police by the Management Standards Committee of News Corporation, which was set up to investigate malpractice at the media giant.
A spokeswoman for News International, the British newspaper wing of News Corp, would not comment on whether the arrested journalist worked for the company.
The journalist was arrested at his north London home while the policeman, a serving officer with Sussex Police in south-east England, was arrested at his home in Sussex.
Both are in custody at London police stations, Scotland Yard said.
Australian-born Murdoch was forced to shut down the 168-year-old News of the World over a storm of revelations that its staff had hacked into the voicemail messages of a murdered teenager, as well as dozens of public figures.
Scotland Yard has made a total of 43 arrests under Operation Elveden, which is investigating journalists’ alleged bribery of public officials, and 24 under Operation Weeting, its probe into phone hacking.
A further nine people have been arrested under Operation Tuleta into alleged computer hacking and privacy breaches by journalists.
Andy Coulson, former media chief to Prime Minister David Cameron, and former top Murdoch aide Rebekah Brooks are among those who have been formally charged with phone hacking.
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