News of the World’s ‘fake sheikh’ in talks with Sunday Times

Publisher keen for paper’s controversial former investigations editor, Mazher Mahmood, not to join rival title ‘Fake sheikh’ Mazher Mahmood, the News of the World’s controversial investigations editor, is in talks with the Sunday Times about relaunching his career, after 20 years at the Sunday tabloid where he claimed to have “saved children from paedos and nailed 250 evil crooks”. News International is determined not to lose Mahmood to the competition and has encouraged talks with the Sunday broadsheet. Mahmood, who specialised in undercover stings, often dressed as a sheikh, has not been tainted by the phone-hacking scandal, but nonetheless a move to the Sunday Times would be an eye-catching signing for the upmarket paper. “Mahzer is the News of the World. He is the brand. He has had some spectacular stings like the cricket match fixing, Fergie and Sophie-Rhys Jones, but he specialises in fairly low-rent villains that hardly fit in with the tone and culture of the Sunday Times,” said one former colleague. Talks will no doubt centre on how he will operate within, or alongside, the paper’s core investigations unit and whether his team goes with him. Mahmood worked secretly and was rarely in the office but had a team of journalists, technical staff and bodyguards with him on his operations. Mahmood’ scalps included Sarah Ferguson, who agreed to take $40,000 from the ‘sheik’ to arrange access to Prince Andrew. The fact that Mahmood had also snared other royals including Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Princess Michael of Kent using the same disguise didn’t set alarm bells ringing for Ferguson, who subsequently said she was “devastated” by the revelations. If Mahmood signs a deal with the Sunday Times he will be one of a handful of former News of the World journalists who are expected to stay at News International. Rank-and-file journalists say they feel they are being frozen out by the publisher despite promises by former chief executive Rebekah Brooks that staff would be redeployed within the group. Last week it emerged that the jobs on offer include posts include a Fox TV job in Siberia and oil reporting jobs in Murdoch’s Dow Jones financial wire service, neither of which are obvious career moves for News of the World journalists. “I don’t think there is the slightest chance of getting a job at NI. The most obvious place to go is the Sun but they don’t want to risk of the paper being drawn into the phone-hacking scandal and no matter how slim the risk is, having one of their staff arrested, even as a witness, is something they don’t want. They want to de-link from the News of the World totally,” said one journalist. Another said: “The 90-day consultation period is up on 8 October. It feels like a prison sentence. Most people are looking around elsewhere but it’s difficult with such a cloud hanging over the paper you’ve been working for.” •

Posted by on August 5, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.