Operation #Tuleta:Peter Hain confirms investigation by police of high security hacking

News International's chief executive denies that company was involved in any interference with Hain's computers

Letters from Peter Hain and Tom Mockridge to the Guardian

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Peter Hain says 'the Guardian story [about the possible hacking of his computers] was an entirely accurate account of my interaction with Operation Tuleta'. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Peter Hain has confirmed that police have met him to investigate the possible hacking of his computers while he was in his high security cabinet post as Northern Ireland secretary between 2005 and 2007. The approach by officers from Operation Tuleta was first reported in the Guardian last month.

News International, the former publisher of the News of the World, which has been accused in another case at the Leveson inquiry of using a former soldier to plant computer viruses, had challenged the Guardian report about the police investigation. In an email to the paper the company's chief executive, Tom Mockridge wrote: "News International has been advised that Mr Hain's computer equipment (and that of the Northern Ireland Office) was not and has not been the subject of an investigation by Operation Tuleta and there is no belief or suspicion that this equipment was hacked."

But Hain said in a letter the NI claim was incorrect. "The Guardian story was an entirely accurate account of my interaction with Operation Tuleta.

"I met with DI Beswick, head of Operation Tuleta, at his request last month to discuss an investigation into the possible hacking of three of my computers during my time as secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Two of these computers were issued by the Northern Ireland Office. One was my personal computer. I have provided the Met with account details for all three computers as they requested. This is a matter of national security and subject to a police investigation."

He added: "But I can say that the police confirmed to me they had not eliminated any news organisation from their investigation."

Mockridge denies that News International was involved in any interference with Hain's computers. The Leveson inquiry has heard from Ian Hurst, a former British army intelligence agent who recruited and ran agents within the IRA in Northern Ireland. Hurst, who also used the pseudonym Martin Ingram, told the inquiry his computer was hacked into by a Trojan virus in 2006 by private investigators on behalf of the News of the World.

The Met, whose Operation Tuleta is one of three linked investigations into computer hacking, phone hacking and police corruption, declined to comment on the meeting with Hain. Met detectives working on Tuleta have made one arrest, of a man aged 52, in Milton Keynes last month. He was held at a Thames Valley police station and later bailed. The Tuleta team reports to Scotland Yard's deputy assistant commissioner, Sue Akers.

On Wednesday detectives working on Operation Elveden, the investigation into alleged illegal payments to police, made their first arrest of a police officer. A 52-year-old woman, believed to be a royal protection officer, was arrested in Essex.

In total there have been eight arrests in connection with Elveden, and 16 arrests by officers in the Met's phone-hacking investigation, Operation Weeting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/23/peter-hain-investigation-police-hacking?CMP=twt_gu