Andy Coulson Detained By Police In Scotland Over Suspected Perjury

More quality behavior from the quality people in Rupert Murdoch's organization:

Andy Coulson, David Cameron's former director of communications, has been detained by police investigating alleged perjury at the trial of the Scottish socialist politician Tommy Sheridan.

Strathclyde police said Coulson was detained in London on Wednesday morning for questioning in connection with evidence the former News of the World editor gave during Sheridan's own trial for perjury in December 2010.

Coulson is currently travelling under escort with Strathclyde police officers and being taken to Govan police station in Glasgow, the base for Operation Rubicon, the inquiry set up to investigate alleged perjury at the trial. He will be questioned later on Wednesday.

Coulson, who was then serving as the prime minister's chief media adviser at 10 Downing Street, was called as a defence witness by Sheridan, who was on trial for lying in court when he won a £200,000 defamation action against the NoW.

The former NoW editor was questioned over two days at the high court in Glasgow by Sheridan, who conducted his own defence, about his knowledge of a hacking operation against Sheridan carried out by Glenn Mulcaire.

During the trial, Sheridan produced documentary evidence that he had been twice targeted by Mulcaire, a private detective hired by the NoW, in 2004.

It has since emerged that other close members of Sheridan's family and associates were also named and potentially targeted by Mulcaire, including the politician's mother, Alice Sheridan, and the Scottish politician Joan McAlpine, a former friend of his who co-wrote a book on Sheridan's anti-poll tax campaign in the early 1990s.

Strathclyde police, in tandem with senior prosecutors at the Crown Office, Scotland's prosecution authority, launched an inquiry into alleged perjury at Sheridan's trial and into hacking in Scotland last autumn. The investigation, Operation Rubicon, involved at least 50 detectives.

Under Scottish police procedure, Coulson has not been formally arrested as he has not yet been charged. This is the second time he has been detained in connection with the wider hacking affair: he has already been arrested by the Metropolitan police as part of its investigations into NI.

So it goes.