Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

More on the criminal corruption which sabotaged a murder investigation.

Tom Watson MP used Parliamentary Privilege to make incredibly serious allegations against former News Intl hack Alex Marunchak.

Private Investigator murdered for plan 'to expose police corruption'

Wednesday 29 February 2012 Channel 4 News
The brother of murdered private investigator Daniel Morgan tells Channel 4 News Morgan was killed because he was about to expose corruption in the police.


Daniel Morgan was found dead in a south London car park in 1987. His inquest ruled he had been unlawfully killed yet five separate police inquiries have failed to result in a conviction.

His brother Alastair Morgan told Channel 4 News he believes his brother was about to expose police corruption and that it was this which led to Daniel's murder: "What we know is that in the days before his murder, he said to a neighbour, 'you will never guess what I have found out today. All police are bastards'."

Asked if his brother was about to expose police corruption, he said: "The indications were there from the very beginning - at the time of the murder.

"Throughout the investigations that have taken place more recently, the evidence continues to suggest that is what happened. Police involvement with criminals, involvement with drugs and weapons importation."

Deal

Meanwhile, alleged links between the police and News International were further set out by MP Tom Watson at a Westminster Hall debate. Mr Watson alleged that in the week before his death, Daniel Morgan had brokered a deal to sell a story to the News of the World exposing police corruption and that his contact there was the paper's former crime editor Alex Marunchak.Mr Watson said the private detective was promised a payment of £40,000.

Echoing the family's demands, Mr Watson asked Police Minister Nick Herbert to launch a judicial inquiry into Mr Morgan's death. Mr Watson also used parliamentary privilege to set out what he said were links between Metropolitan Police detectives who were investigating Daniel Morgan's murder and Alex Marunchak.

Mr Marunchak has denied any links to Daniel Morgan or any allegations of wrongdoing.

Mr Watson also called on the government to investigate claims that the police has an intelligence file which suggests illegal payments were made to police investigating the Soham murders.

Judicial inquiry not ruled out

In response to Tom Watson's statement, Police Minister Nick Herbert said: "It is important to consider what options are now available to identify and address the issue of police corruption and to bring those responsible for Daniel's murder to justice.

"The Morgan family has called for a judicial inquiry and this call has been endorsed by the Metropolitan Police Authority."

He added: "We are considering very carefully if this is the right way forward. The home secretary and I haven't ruled out ordering a judicial inquiry at this stage."

But the minister also refused to rule out another investigation involving the police, something which the Morgan family have said it does not want as it has lost faith in the service.

Note that Marunchak has been accused of direct involvement in the hacking and bugging of an Irish Dirty War British intelligence asset turned whistleblower.

No wonder all that tosh about Rebekah Brooks and the police horse was deliberately leaked yesterday.

Magda - good cartoon though. :lol:

More on the murder, and more on Marunchak's many lives, from investigative journalist Nick Davies.

Police confronted Rebekah Brooks with evidence of crime

Published July 2011 Published by the Guardian
July 6 2011

As editor of the News of the World Rebekah Brooks was personally confronted with evidence that her paper's resources had been used on behalf of two murder suspects to spy on the senior detective who was investigating their alleged crime.

Brooks was summoned to a meeting at Scotland Yard where she was told that one of her most senior journalists, Alex Marunchak, had apparently agreed to use photographers and vans leased to the paper to run surveillance on behalf of Jonathan Rees and Sid Fillery, two notorious private investigators who were suspected of murdering their former partner, Daniel Morgan. The Yard saw this as a possible attempt to pervert the course of justice.

Brooks was also told of evidence that Marunchak had a corrupt relationship with Jonathan Rees, who had been earning up to £150,000 a year selling confidential data to the News of the World. Police told her that a former employee of Rees had given them a statement alleging that some of these payments were diverted to Marunchak who had been able to pay off his credit card and pay for his child's private school fees.

A Guardian investigation suggests that the surveillance of the senior murder squad officer, Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook, involved the News of the World in physically following him and his young children, blagging' his personal details from confidential police databases, attempting to access his voicemail and that of his wife, and possibly sending a Trojan horse' email in an attempt to steal information from his computer.

The targeting of DCS Cook began following his appearance on BBC Crimewatch on June 26 2002, when he appealed for information to solve the murder of Daniel Morgan, who had been found dead in south London five years earlier. Jonathan Rees and Sid Fillery were among the suspects.

The following day, Cook was warned by Scotland Yard that they had picked up intelligence that Fillery had been in touch with Alex Marunchak and that Marunchak had agreed to 'sort Cook out'.

A few days later, Cook was contacted by Surrey police, where he had worked as a senior detective from 1996 to 2001, and was told that somebody claiming to work for the Inland Revenue had contacted their finance department, asking for Cook's home address so that they could send him a cheque with a tax refund. The finance department had been suspicious and refused to give out the information.

However, it is now known that at that time, the News of the World's fulltime investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, succeeded in obtaining Cook's home address, his internal payroll number at the Metropolitan police, his date of birth and figures for the amount that he and his wife were paying for their mortgage. All of this appears to have been blagged' by Mulcaire from various confidential databases, apparently including the Met's own records.

In addition, Mulcaire obtained the mobile phone number for Cook's wife and the password she used for her mobile phone account, strongly suggesting that he was intent on hacking her voicemail, the offence for which he was jailed in January 2007.

Paperwork in the possession of Scotland Yard's Operation Weeting is believed to show that Mulcaire did this on the instructions of Greg Miskiw, then the paper's assistant editor for news and a close friend of Alex Marunchak.

About a week later, a van was seen parked outside Cook's home. The following day, two vans were seen there. Both of them attempted to follow Cook as he took his two-year-old son to nursery. Cook alerted Scotland Yard, who sent a uniformed officer to stop one of the vans on the grounds that its rear break light was broken. The driver proved to be a photo journalist working for the News of the World. Both vans were leased to the paper. During the same week, there were signs of an attempt to open letters which had been left in Cook's external postbox.

Confronted with evidence that their senior detective was being targeted by a newspaper acting on behalf of murder suspects, Scotland Yard chose not to mount a formal inquiry. Instead, the Guardian understands, a senior press officer contacted Rebekah Brooks to ask for an explanation. She is understood to have told them that they were investigating a report that Cook was having an affair with another officer, Jacqui Hames, the presenter of BBC Crimewatch. Yard sources say they rejected this explanation, because Cook had been married to Jacqui Hames for some years; the couple had two children, then aged two and five; and they had previously appeared together as a married couple in published stories. "The story was complete rubbish," according to one source.

For four months, the Yard took no action, raising questions about whether they were willing to pursue what appeared to be an attempt to interfere with a murder inquiry. However, in November 2002, at a press social event at Scotland Yard, Rebekah Brooks was asked to come into a side room for a meeting.

There she was confronted by DCS Cook, his boss Commander Andre Baker and Dick Fedorcio, the head of media relations. According to a Yard source, Cook described to her in detail the surveillance on his home and the apparent involvement of Alex Marunchak, and also summarised the evidence of Marunchak's suspect financial relationship with Jonathan Rees. Brooks is said to have defended Marunchak on the grounds that he did his job well.

Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Dick Fedorcio, who has had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the News of the World.

Cook subsequently suspected that Trojan horse' emails may have been sent to his computer and to that of Daniel Morgan's brother, Alastair, although no confirmation was ever found. In March Alex Marunchak was named by BBC Panorama as the News of the World executive who hired a specialist to plan a Trojan on the computer of a former British intelligence officer, Ian Hurst.

Rees and Fillery were eventually arrested and charged in relation to the murder of Daniel Morgan. Charges against both men were later dropped, although Rees was convicted of plotting to plant cocaine on a woman so that her ex husband would get custody of their children; and Fillery was convicted of possessing indecent images of children.

DCS Cook and his wife are believed to be preparing a legal action against the News of the World, Alex Marunchek, Greg Miskiw and Glenn Mulcaire. Scotland Yard's Operation Weeting are also understood to be investigating.