Murdoch's tabloid targeted militant clerics in London

London: Prominent militants in London were targeted by a private investigator working for Rupert Murdoch's now-closed News of the World tabloid, according to data obtained by Reuters.

The data, which was collected by British government investigators in 2006 as they looked into alleged media abuses, show that a News of the World journalist commissioned private investigator Steve Whittamore to gather data on Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada, two of London's most controversial militant clerics.

Mohammad Al Masri, a Saudi dissident who lives in London, was also targeted in the same way, the data shows.

The information does not indicate whether the newspaper or private eye hacked into any of the militants' voicemails, an illegal tactic used by another detective employed by the paper who was jailed in 2007 along with a reporter for hacking into the voicemails of celebrities and aides to Britain's royal family.

News International, Murdoch's London newspaper publishing operation, said it was looking into the matter.

On Friday, London's Metropolitan Police said its investigators had so far identified 5,795 different individuals as possible victims of News of the World phone hacking.

Journalist held

Sources at News International also said a journalist for its surviving tabloid daily, The Sun, had been arrested on Friday in connection with inquiries into bribery of police.

The sources said Friday's arrest was the first for work performed for The Sun. The News of the World was shut in July after reports that it had hacked voicemails on a large scale, now the subject of a police investigation.

The information on the News of the World's militant targets is contained in an electronic database known as the "blue book", which was assembled by the Information Commissioner's Office, a British government agency, from evidence seized in a 2003 raid on Whittamore's home.

The database is undated but is believed to cover a period between 2000 and 2003. It offers no clues on what, if anything, the News of the World dug up on the targets.

Convicted

The paper ran a story in 2003 exposing what it said was a bigamous marriage by Abu Hamza, which the newspaper said had helped him to win the right to reside in Britain. The woman he wed later denied that she had already been married at the time.

Whittamore, who could not be reached for comment, was convicted in 2005 of passing information to journalists from a confidential police database, and sentenced to probation.

He told BBC Radio last year that he had sometimes been asked to find confidential information, such as bank or telephone account details, work that he sometimes contracted out.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks by Al Qaida militants on New York and Washington, both US and British intelligence agencies monitored London-based militants with suspected Al Qaida links.