LONDON: Police arrested a woman who works for Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper arm News International yesterday as part of an investigation into the bribery of public officials, the company said.
Scotland Yard said a 37-year-old woman was arrested by appointment at a south London police station on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt, suspicion of conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office and suspicion of bribery.
The arrest was “the result of information provided to police by News Corporation’s Management Standards Committee,” a body set up by Murdoch to look into illegal activity at the US-based media giant, police said.
Police did not identify the woman.
A spokeswoman for News International, which runs The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times and formerly ran the News of the World tabloid confirmed to AFP that the woman “is a News International employee.”
The spokeswoman would not confirm a BBC report that the woman is a journalist. The woman was arrested by officers from Operation Elveden, a Scotland Yard investigation looking into allegations of inappropriate payments to police and public officials, police said.
It is being run in tandem with Operation Weeting, the original investigation launched in January 2011 into phone-hacking at the News of the World, which has since been closed down by Murdoch’s US-based News Corp. empire.
More than 40 people have been arrested so far as part of the combined probes.
Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International and a one-time editor of the News of the World, was charged earlier this month with perverting the course of justice.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron rejected calls to fire his Culture Minister yesterday after a public inquiry heard how the minister had ignored warnings from staff to lend his support to a major Rupert Murdoch takeover deal.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
Female Murdoch staff arrested in UK inquiry
