Was surprised to not see a diary on this yet...so apologies for the shortness of the diary.
From Raw Story:
Prosecutors on Tuesday charged David Cameron’s former spokesman Andy Coulson and ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks with phone-hacking.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it was charging a total of eight people in relation to the scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid, while it was taking no further action against five others.
Along with Coulson and Brooks, Glenn Mulcaire, who already served in 2007 for phone hacking, also faces fresh charges.
Caveat: I am certain those who know much more about the inner workings (Ceebs, Brit, EricLewis, etc) can shed much more light on this... I just wanted to get it out there.
Some more info below the Flourish - and some additional links from AnnetteK, whose Google-Fu is better than mine. :)
From the story at Reuters:
The development is particularly embarrassing for [Prime Minister David] Cameron because Coulson was also charged with hacking the phones of David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, two former home secretaries from the now-opposition Labour Party.
I, for one, will be tuning in to Question Time on CSPAN...
And more, from The Guardian:
All of them apart from Mulcaire will be charged with conspiring to intercept communications without lawful authority between October 3, 2000, and August 9, 2006. Prosecutors will claim that more than 600 people, including Hollywood superstars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, were victims of this offence.
Ms Levitt said that Brooks will face two additional charges relating to allegedly accessing the voicemails of Milly Dowler and former Fire Brigades Union boss Andrew Gilchrist. Coulson will face four charges linked to accusations of accessing the phone messages of Milly Dowler, former Labour ministers David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, and George Best's son Calum Best.
Of course, Brooks is denying all of the charges.
UPDATE: thanks to AnnetteK, here is a link to the full charge statement.
Also from AnnetteK in the comments:
- Brit's diary at The Daily Beast
- commentary from the Zelo Street blog
- discussion about Sue Akers' testimony at Brown Moses blog
UPDATE: Am reading the discussion about Akers' testimony - it looks like this could come to the US sooner than we think: Akers dropped the phrase "corporate offences" - which could be significant here in the US, as we have a pesky law known as FCPA (Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act). FCPA, as the Brown Moses blog explains, "enables prosecution in relation to bad practice, bribery and corruption - whether or not those offences took place on American soil."
They surmise that this may be one of the reasons Rupert stepped down as director of UK newspaper operations, a move that "could be explained as a pre-emptive move hoping to mollify the FBI."