Police quiz Irish journalists over computer hacking

An Irish journalist has been accused of computer hacking.

Kevin Doyle Twitter Email

October 10 2014 11:10 PM

An Irish journalist has been quizzed by detectives investigating computer hacking and two more are likely to be interviewed.

UK police investigating the hacking of computers found illegally obtained emails which were sent to the reporters by a private investigator.

A fourth Irish journalist, now deceased, also used the same team of private detectives, the Irish Independent has learned.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police are now considering criminal charges in the case.

A specialist team from Scotland Yard has been running Operation Kalmyk for more than two years.

They have used the very latest technological advances to search computer hard drives seized from convicted criminal Philip Campbell Smith, who offered his services to a range of media organisations in Britain.

Until now the investigations had been solely focused on British journalists.

However the Irish Independent understands that three print journalists based in Ireland hired Campbell Smith for up to six months in 2006.

One of the journalists, based in Dublin, has been formally interviewed.

He was not arrested but was told he may be questioned further.

It is alleged that at the behest of all three journalists, Campbell Smith placed a so-called 'Trojan' virus on the computer of a third party.

The virus meant that all incoming and outgoing emails from the laptop secretly generated a copy which was automatically sent to Campbell Smith.

Many of those emails were then sent by Campbell Smith to journalists operating in Ireland at the time.

Campbell Smith had been given the work by Jonathan Rees, another convicted criminal who boasted last year he had carried out work for RTE. The national broadcaster has said it has no record of any payments made to him.

The investigation into computer hacking is being taken more seriously by detectives than the more publicised hacking of celebrities' phones.

Campbell Smith (53) was jailed for eight months in 2012 for "blagging" information from the UK's Police National Computer, Customs and Excise and Interpol. He is a former undercover soldier.

Rees, with whom he worked closely, served a seven-year jail sentence after being caught planting cocaine on a woman in England so she would lose a custody battle.

In a 2007 affidavit as part of an attempt to have his conviction overturned, Rees named those he claimed to be his clients.