News exec to appear on hacking charges

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LONDON, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- A former editor of the News of the World was ordered by a British judge Monday to appear in court later this month on phone-hacking related charges.

Rebekah Brooks also was banned from contacting six other defendants also charged in the scandal that forced closure of the paper, The Guardian reported.

During a four-minute hearing, a magistrate ordered Brooks to appear in crown court on Sept. 26 in relation to the charges.

Brooks, 44, was already due in court that day for a separate hearing on charges she conspired to pervert the course of justice.

The judge also ordered her not to contact Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck, Ian Edmondson, James Weatherup, Andy Coulson and Stuart Kuttner who also face charges stemming numerous incidents in which the phone messages of celebrities and politicians allegedly were intercepted between October 2000 and August, 2006.

Among the voice mail messages some or all of them are accused of hacking were that of missing teen Milly Dowler and the leader of a firefighters union.