Tabloid accused of hacking into politicians and celebrities phones

Jul 9, 2009, 12:16 GMT

London - Police in Britain were investigating claims Thursday that the Sunday tabloid newspaper News of the World hacked into thousands of mobile phones belonging to politicians and celebrities.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the tabloid - owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International group - paid private investigators to access the voicemail of the mobiles of up to 3,000 well-known figures.

Victims are reported to include the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, London Mayor Boris Johnson and supermodel Elle Macpherson.

Rather than using bugging devices or eavesdropping on live conversations, the paper is accused of listening in to personal voicemails on mobiles through a loophole whereby the user has not changed the factory-issued PIN number.

The scandal first emerged in 2007, when the then editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, resigned after the paper's royal editor was jailed for tapping into the phones of members of the royal family.

At the time it was thought the affair stretched no further than a one-off bid to listen to the monarchy's private voicemails, but Thursday's accusations suggest the private investigators attempted to break into several thousand other phones.

Coulson now works as the chief media advisor to Conservative opposition leader David Cameron, and the government Labour party has called on him to fully explain his role in the affair.

After the Guardian's revelations on Thursday, the Metropolitan police in London confirmed they were looking into the affair.

The full extent of the phone-hacking only became apparent, the Guardian alleges, when another victim of the phone-hacking was paid 700,000 pounds in damamges, on condition details of the case were not made public.