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Former NOTW man arrested after flying back from America

 

Ian Burrell
Wednesday 10 August 2011 19:00 EDT

Police investigating the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World (NOTW) have made their 12th arrest. The paper's former news editor Greg Miskiw, 61, was held after reporting by appointment at a London police station yesterday.

The news came as Time magazine revealed that Preet Bharara, who is heading the US investigation into News Corp, was best man at the wedding of Viet Dinh, an independent board member of the company. Dinh is conducting News Corp's internal investigation into phone hacking. In an interview with Time in 2007, Dinh described Bharara as "my best friend". This week his spokesman told the magazine that the two men had not discussed hacking.

In a separate development yesterday, Scotland Yard confirmed that the Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating whether Dick Fedorcio, the Metropolitan Police director of public affairs, committed an act of gross misconduct in his handling of the hacking affair. Mr Fedorcio denies impropriety and has held onto his post while more senior figures at the Yard have resigned.

Miskiw, a veteran British tabloid journalist, is understood to have been held on suspicion of unlawful interception of communications and conspiring to intercept communications. Until recently, he had been living in Florida. Miskiw's name appears on a contract that the NOTW had with the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire (identified by the pseudonym "Paul Williams"). Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 for the hacking of phones belonging to members of the royal household.

Shortly after Mulcaire and the NOTW's royal editor Clive Goodman were jailed, Miskiw moved to Manchester to take over the paper's northern office. He later left the paper and set up a Manchester news agency. Last month he stood outside his Florida apartment to read out a statement in which he said that he would be returning to the UK "voluntarily". He added that his solicitor had been in contact with the police.

During his time at the NOTW, Miskiw made the infamous comment "That's what we do – we destroy people's lives." He worked for the newspaper's editors Rebekah Wade and Andy Coulson, both of whom have lost their jobs over phone hacking.

James Murdoch, who has faced calls for his own resignation over the handling of the hacking affair, is due to give written details to MPs today to convince them he did not mislead a parliamentary committee in evidence he provided last month. The former NOTW editor Colin Myler and the paper's legal manager, Tom Crone, have jointly claimed that evidence given by Mr Murdoch to the select committee was "mistaken".

Both are expected to support that assertion in letters to the committee before today's evidence deadline. Jon Chapman, former head of legal affairs of News International, which published the NOTW, is also expected to submit evidence to MPs today after his role was commented on at the hearing.

News International continues to face questions over whether Ms Brooks remains on the company payroll. The website of PA Group, which oversees the newspaper industry's Press Association national news agency, no longer lists her on the Board of Directors, to which she was appointed in March last year.

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