Phone-hacking: President Zardari’s private data also targeted

Zardari's credit card statement targeted to find out what he had been spending his money on.

LONDON:

When private investigators, at the behest of a newspaper owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, covertly obtained personal data of individuals, they didn’t skip out on President Asif Ali Zardari, reported the Press Trust of India.

President Zardari’s credit card statement was obtained by a private investigator for The Sunday Times, mentioned Nick Davies, a journalist writing for the Guardian who doggedly exposed the dubious news-gathering practices in the British press.

Davies, whose revelations led to the current phone-hacking imbroglio, detailed several instances of unethical and illegal practices on Fleet Street in his book, “Flat Earth News.”

In a revealing chapter titled “The Dark Arts”, Davies writes: “One investigator described being hired by The Sunday Times to target Asif Zardari, the husband of former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, whose credit card statement he supplied so that The Sunday Times reporters could find out where he had been staying and what he had been spending his money on.”

However, Davies does not mention the year Zardari was targeted.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd,  2011.