Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson charged with ‘illegaly paying officials’

London: Former News International chief Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron’s former director of communications Andy Coulson have been charged with illegally paying officials for information. Coulson, who was the editor of the News of the World from 2003 until his resignation in 2007, has been charged with illegally paying for information from Buckingham Palace`s internal phone directory, known as The Green Book, the UK Crown Prosecution Service has announced.

The confidential directory includes home numbers for senior royals including the Earl of Wessex and the Princess Royal as well as the landline and mobile numbers of all royal household staff. According to the Telegraph, Brooks, who edited both the News of the World and The Sun, is to be charged alongside the The Sun`s long time former chief reporter John Kay, over alleged illegal payments to a Ministry of Defence employee, Bettina Jordan-Barber. It is alleged Jordan-Barber, who is understood to be a senior official on the MOD``s Iraq desk, was paid in the region of 100,000 pounds between 2004 and 2011 for information which formed the basis of a series of news stories in The Sun. The charges follow investigations conducted as part of Scotland Yard`s Operation Elveden. ANI