Police arrest UK PM's ex-aide over phone hacking

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LONDON: British police on Friday arrested Andy Coulson, UK prime minister David Cameron's former communications chief and ex-editor of the News of the World tabloid, for alleged involvement in phone hacking, Scotland Yard said.

Police were also quizzing him over allegations of corruption amid reports that the News of the World paid police officers for information when he was in charge of the paper from 2003 to 2007.

Coulson's arrest came after the surprise announcement on Thursday that the News of the World, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, is to close amid new allegations of phone hacking.

It is alleged private investigators hired by the paper hacked into the phones of a teenage girl who went missing and was later found dead, the relatives of dead British soldiers and the families of victims of the 2005 bomb attacks in London.