Rebekah Brooks reportedly arrested in British phone-hacking scandal LONDON - Rebekah Brooks, a former top executive with Rupert Murdoch's News International, was among six people arrested Tuesday in one of the largest police sweeps yet in the long-running phone-hacking scandal, British news media reported. Rebekah Brooks, the 43-year-old former editor of the Sun and News of the World newspapers, and her husband, Charlie, a 49-year-old racehorse trainer and friend of British Prime Minister David Cameron, were identified by the media as two of those arrested in connection with an investigation dubbed Operation Weeting. Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's former British CEO, said she was "assisting the police with their inquiries" after previously being arrested in July 2011 as part of the British phone hacking and police bribery scandal. Key relationships in the scandal The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that "all six - five men and one woman - were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice." The arrests were carried out in London, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Hertfordshire between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., the statement said. Operation Weeting is one of three police probes related to the phone-hacking scandal that has rocked Britain's establishment and led to the closure last July of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid. Allegations that the tabloid's reporters had illegally intercepted hundreds of voice mails triggered several high-profile resignations, including those of Brooks, then News International's chief executive, and Andy Coulson, Cameron's former director of communications. A News International spokeswoman refused to confirm reports of the Brookses" arrests, but she said that Mark Hanna, News International's head of security, was arrested Tuesday morning. Cameron, who is currently in Washington on an official visit, has a home in Oxfordshire near the Brookses" and was recently forced to acknowledge the closeness of his relationship with the couple amid a media storm that was quickly dubbed "horsegate." Following reports that Scotland Yard had lent Rebekah Brooks a retired police horse, Cameron conceded that before he became prime minister he had ridden the horse with her husband. I have known Charlie Brooks, the husband of Rebekah Brooks, for over 30 years and he is a good friend and he is a neighbor in the constituency. We live a few miles apart," Cameron told reporters this month. With three police investigations and a government-commissioned inquiry into press ethics, barely a week goes by here without further allegations of wrongdoings by British tabloid journalists. The flame-haired Rebekah Brooks had previously been arrested last summer on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption. She was released on bail. A spokesman for Scotland Yard said that Tuesday's arrests bring to 48 the total number of people arrested in the various police investigations linked to phone hacking.