Rebekah Brooks Arrested in Murdoch Phone Hacking Scandal

Police have arrested Rebekah Brooks – the 43-year-old former chief executive of News International – in connection with an investigation into phone hacking and bribery at News Corp’s News of the World.

Brooks, the loyal lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch and tenth person to be arrested in the scandal, turned herself into a London police station on Sunday afternoon and apparently didn’t believe she would be imprisoned upon doing so.

The ex-chief – she resigned on Friday – is scheduled to go before a committee of British Parliament this week that is investigating the allegations of hacking and bribery, however the arrest throws her planned testimony into uncertainty, because she wouldn’t have to answer questions from the committee that might sway the separate criminal investigation.

“My resignation makes it possible for me to have the freedom and the time to give my full cooperation to all the current and future inquiries, the police investigations and the CMS appearance,” Brooks said in her statement of resignation.

Brooks has consistently asserted that she had no knowledge of the phone hacking and alleged police bribery despite the fact that she was editor of News of the World from 2000 to 2003 – the period in which when the phone of a young girl, Milly Dowler, was hacked.

Update: Apparently Brooks has already been bailed out, according to a statement released to the AFP by her spokesperson.

“I can confirm that she (Brooks) was released earlier this evening and has been bailed until late October,” her spokesman David Wilson told AFP.

via Guardian