LONDON — British police made their 11th arrest Tuesday in their continuing investigation into phone hacking by the now-shuttered Sunday tabloid News of the World, owned by the British newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
A 71-year-old suspect, named in media reports here as Stuart Kuttner, former managing editor of News of the World, was arrested on charges of conspiracy to intercept communications and corruption when he voluntarily appeared for questioning at a central London police station.
Kuttner’s arrest follows the high-profile arrests of former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks and her successor, Andy Coulson, who later became communications officer for Prime Minister David Cameron. The pair are under suspicion of authorizing payments by journalists to private investigators for illegal phone hacking.
Kuttner himself resigned from the paper in 2009, after 22 years as managing editor. Although unexplained, his resignation came just before reports appeared that News of the World paid a million-dollar out-of-court settlement to former soccer player and executive Gordon Taylor, who threatened to bring charges of phone hacking.
As managing editor, Kuttner would have had to authorize all payments in the editorial budget, including any made to the private investigators. Glenn Mulcaire, an investigator employed on contract by News of the World, and royal reporter Clive Goodman, accused of ordering hacking into the phones of the British royal family, were both convicted in 2007.
In testimony she gave to a parliamentary committee two weeks ago, Brooks, who recently resigned as chief of News International in London, said private investigators were habitually used by News of the World, as they were by all British papers.
“The payments of private detectives would have gone through the managing editor’s office,” she said.
