Stuart Kuttner, former managing editor and public face of the News of the World, has been arrested on suspicion of phone hacking and bribing police officers at News Corp.'s shuttered British tabloid, the Guardian reported Tuesday.
Kuttner served under both Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, two News of the World editors who have been arrested in connection with the scandal.
It is believed that he was arrested on suspicion of violating two laws — the Criminal Law Act of 1977 and the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906. The former relates to the alleged phone hacking and the latter to alleged bribery.
They are the same alleged violations faced by Brooks, who is both former chief executive of News International — News Corp.'s British publishing arm — and former editor-in-chief of the News of the World.
Kuttner had come in for a meeting with the London Metropolitan Police on Tuesday for questioning.
Brooks has spent the last month in the spotlight because of her position at News of the World and close relationships with News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
When she appeared before a Parliamentary Select Committee last month, she was questioned about payments made to private investigators, particularly Glenn Mulcaire. Though Brooks admitted using private investigators, she denied any memory of making specific payments, and passed the buck to Kuttner.
The question of private investigators became even more important last week when it was revealed that Mulcaire may have hacked the phone of Sarah Payne's family. Payne was an eight-year old girl who was abducted and murdered in 2000, leading to the "Sarah's Law" campaign.
The law helped families with young children learn of sex offenders living in their areas. Brooks and the News of the World championed the cause, but it is now alleged that the hacking was done on a phone Brooks gave to Payne's family.
The phone hacking scandal first became an international story with reports that News of the World hacked the phone of another murdered young girl, Milly Dowler.
