British prosecutors yesterday accused ex-Rupert Murdoch aide Rebekah Brooks and five others of obstructing justice in the first criminal charges to emerge from the News of the World hacking scandal.
The former News International (NI) chief, her husband, Charlie Brooks, and four people who worked for her were charged with trying to hide evidence from police investigating the interception of voicemails by the now-closed tabloid.
Brooks, 43, and her husband, who is a former racehorse trainer and schoolfriend of British Prime Minister David Cameron, criticized the “weak and unjust” decision.
Senior prosecutor Alison Levitt said there was “sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction” in the six cases, while a seventh person arrested had been released without charge.
The others to be charged are Cheryl Carter, Rebekah Brooks’s personal assistant; Mark Hanna, head of security at NI; Brooks’s chauffeur Paul Edwards, who was employed by NI, and Daryl Jorsling, who provided security for Brooks that was supplied by NI.
Levitt said all six were charged with conspiring “with persons unknown to conceal material from officers of the Metropolitan Police Service” between July 6 and July 19 last year, at the height of the hacking scandal.
Brooks and Carter were charged with conspiring to remove seven boxes of material from the archives of News International, the British newspaper wing of Murdoch’s US-based News Corp empire, between the same dates.
All five except Carter were also charged with conspiring to “conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment from officers of the Metropolitan Police Service” between July 15 and 19 last year.
Brooks and her husband were arrested in March over the allegations. She was initially arrested in July last year over separate allegations of phone hacking and bribing public officials, and she remains on bail for those accusations.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in