British tabloid News of the World may have hacked into the voicemail accounts of 9/11 victims.
News of the World printed its last issue on Sunday after being embroiled in a phone hacking scandal that has captivated the British media.
A former New York police officer now reportedly claims that he was asked to hack the phone accounts of victims killed in the 9/11 attacks.
Reporters working at News of the World allegedly contacted the officer to offer money in exchange for victims’ phone records.
“The journalists asked him to access records showing the calls that had been made to and from the mobile phones belonging to the victims and their relatives,” a source told The Mirror.
“His presumption was that they wanted the information so they could hack into the relevant voicemails, just like it has been shown they have done in the UK,” the source said.
The police officer turned down the offer, according to the source, but said that the reporters “seemed particularly interested in getting the phone records belonging to the British victims of the attacks.”
At least 4,000 individuals had their phone accounts hacked in the pursuit of news scoops, according to reports. (NPR’s Totenberg warns of intertwinement of government and press)
British police have arrested several individuals as a result of the scandal. Former News of the World Editor Andy Coulson, a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron until earlier this year, was arrested by police last week.
Rupert Murdoch, whose company News International owned News of the World, arrived in London over the weekend to manage the fallout from the scandal.