Three arrested for royal phone tap

An editor of a tabloid newspaper and two other men faced charges yesterday for allegedly intercepting phone calls from staff close to Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.

The three – including Clive Goodman, royal affairs editor of Britain’s best-selling newspaper, The News of the World – were arrested in the London area Tuesday on suspicion of “unlawful telephone interceptions,” police said. The anti-terrorist branch of London’s Metropolitan Police is investigating because of the potential security risks to the royal family, and say they are now also trying to determine whether other public figures may have been bugged.Police said inquiries began in December last year when three staff members at Clarence House, the prince’s official residence in London, contacted them about “alleged repeated security breaches within its telephone network”.The police would not comment on a BBC report that the three staffers were Prince Charles’s communication secretary Paddy Harverson and two others who work with his sons, Princes William and Harry.One of the two unnamed men, aged 50, has been released on bail, police said.Goodman, 48, and a 35-year-old man remained in custody.Clarence House declined to comment on the developments.However, The News of the World confirmed that its royal editor had been arrested and was being questioned at a police station in London.The offices of News International, which owns The News of the World, have also been searched by police.News International is the British subsidiary of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.The police have not confirmed the report.Police officers have not ruled out the possibility that other royal households could have had their phone conversations intercepted, or that the suspected tapped conversations involved members of the royal family.The chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Sir Christopher Meyer, told BBC Radio he has often heard rumours about reporters intercepting communications to obtain information, though he has received “no hard evidence of this.”His commission’s code of practice insists the media not intercept private or mobile phone calls, messages or e-mails and a “whole bunch of other things which come under the heading of clandestine devices and subterfuge,” he said.The incident is the second blow in a week for The News of the World, which on Friday was found guilty by a court of libelling a Scottish politician and ordered to pay him 200 000 pounds in damages.Nampa-AFPThe anti-terrorist branch of London’s Metropolitan Police is investigating because of the potential security risks to the royal family, and say they are now also trying to determine whether other public figures may have been bugged.Police said inquiries began in December last year when three staff members at Clarence House, the prince’s official residence in London, contacted them about “alleged repeated security breaches within its telephone network”.The police would not comment on a BBC report that the three staffers were Prince Charles’s communication secretary Paddy Harverson and two others who work with his sons, Princes William and Harry.One of the two unnamed men, aged 50, has been released on bail, police said.Goodman, 48, and a 35-year-old man remained in custody.Clarence House declined to comment on the developments.However, The News of the World confirmed that its royal editor had been arrested and was being questioned at a police station in London.The offices of News International, which owns The News of the World, have also been searched by police.News International is the British subsidiary of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.The police have not confirmed the report.Police officers have not ruled out the possibility that other royal households could have had their phone conversations intercepted, or that the suspected tapped conversations involved members of the royal family.The chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Sir Christopher Meyer, told BBC Radio he has often heard rumours about reporters intercepting communications to obtain information, though he has received “no hard evidence of this.”His commission’s code of practice insists the media not intercept private or mobile phone calls, messages or e-mails and a “whole bunch of other things which come under the heading of clandestine devices and subterfuge,” he said.The incident is the second blow in a week for The News of the World, which on Friday was found guilty by a court of libelling a Scottish politician and ordered to pay him 200 000 pounds in damages.Nampa-AFP