London police probing phone hacking at Rupert Murdochs defunct News of the World tabloid are broadening their investigation to allegations of computer hacking,they said on Saturday. A new investigative team will be set up to tackle the new allegations,reporting to Sue Akers,the officer in charge of the phone hacking probe, the Metropolitan Police Service said in a statement. Operation Tuleta is currently considering a number of allegations regarding breach of privacy,received by the MPS since January 2011,which fall outside the remit of (phone-hacking) Operation Weeting,including computer hacking, the statement by the London police force said. Some aspects of this operation will move forward to a formal investigation. London police reopened their investigation into phone hacking in January,shortly after the prime ministers communications chief,Andy Coulson,resigned because of allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World while he was the papers editor. The papers royal reporter Clive Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 for intercepting the voicemail messages of royal aides. On Friday,Mulcaire issued a statement through his lawyer saying he was not acting on his own initiative when he intercepted phone messages while in the pay of the newspaper. Allegations of hacking at News Corps British papers,in particular reports that journalists accessed the voicemails of murder victims,have triggered a judicial inquiry and calls by some politicians to cap News Corps media ownership.
