Facundo Arrizabalaga / EPA, file
Andy Coulson, one-time communications director for Prime Minister David Cameron and former editor of News of the World, is among those who face charges in the British phone-hacking scandal. He is shown here on May 10.
By NBC News wire services
LONDON -- Prime Minister David Cameron's former communications chief and?Rupert Murdoch's former British newspaper boss are among eight people who face charges?in a phone-hacking inquiry that has shaken the British establishment, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Andy Coulson, who was Cameron's communications chief from 2007 until January 2011, and Rebekah Brooks, who was courted by a succession of prime ministers including Cameron in her role as Murdoch's U.K. newspaper chief, would be charged with offenses linked to the hacking, Alison Levitt QC, the principal legal?adviser?to the director of British Public Prosecutions, said in a statement.
The alleged offenses were committed when both were editor of the News of the World newspaper, the Sunday tabloid that Murdoch was forced to close last July amid public revulsion at the phone-hacking revelations.
Others being charged are senior tabloid journalists Stuart Kuttner, Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck, James Weatherup and Ian Edmondson.
Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire is also among those being charged.
Levitt said that for the eight people facing charges, she had concluded that "there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction in relation to one or more offenses."
External link: Read the phone charges in full here
In her statement, Levitt named a number of celebrity victims of alleged phone hacking, including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Jude Law. Other alleged targets of hacking included British teenage murder victim Milly Dowler and?Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Levitt said.
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Embarrassed politicians
The scandal has rocked Murdoch's News Corp., put the notoriously aggressive press under the spotlight and embarrassed senior politicians, including Cameron, over their often cozy ties with the Australian-born businessman.
Brooks had already been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, accused of hindering the police investigation into phone hacking and corruption by staff at his British tabloids.
Neil Hall / Reuters, file
Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, shown leaving London's Southwark Crown Court on June 22, will face charges in the phone-hacking scandal
The detective leading the hacking inquiry said earlier a parallel investigation into corrupt payments by journalists would be extended beyond Murdoch's British newspaper business to other publishers.
Since January last year, police have been working with Murdoch's News International, part of News Corp., to uncover wrongdoing among its staff over allegations journalists illegally accessed mobile phone voicemail messages.
That inquiry has since been expanded to look at corrupt payments to public officials and allegations of computer hacking.
Complete UK news coverage on NBCNews.com
News International has been particularly hit by the repercussions. Murdoch abandoned a bid to acquire the whole of the lucrative pay-TV group BSkyB, which would have been the biggest deal in News Corp.'s history. He also closed down the 168-year-old News of the World Sunday tabloid.
UK police criticized
Police have been widely criticized for their failure to come to grips with the hacking issue when it first emerged nearly seven years ago. Police repeatedly ignored crucial leads and dismissed new evidence, claiming that phone hacking was a limited practice affecting only a handful of people.
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Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said investigators?had notified 2,615 people who might have had their phone hacked, of which 702 were likely to have been victims.
The investigations have led to more than 60 arrests including dozens of current and former journalists, some of whom held senior positions at News International titles.?
NBC News correspondent Duncan Golestani, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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