Piers Morgan interviewed by U.K. police over tabloid phone hacking scandal

LONDON -- CNN host Piers Morgan confirmed Friday that he has been interviewed by British police investigating suspected conspiracy to intercept telephone voicemails.

In a statement released by his spokesman, Morgan said he was interviewed last Dec. 6.

"This was further to a full witness statement I had already freely provided," he said. "I attended that interview as requested."

The Metropolitan Police said a 48-year-old journalist was "interviewed under caution" on that date by officers investigating phone hacking but that no arrest was made. U.K. police do not generally release names of people questioned but do sometimes answer requests about specific people in this manner.

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Police are linking the questioning to a specific inquiry into phone hacking at Mirror Group Newspapers, one of the U.K.'s biggest media groups. Morgan edited The Daily Mirror newspaper, one of the country's top tabloids, between 1995 and 2004.

Morgan, who stepped into the CNN talk show host role long held by Larry King in early 2011, has told a judge-led British inquiry into phone hacking and other media misdeeds that he was not aware of any phone hacking during his tenure at the tabloid.

Judge Brian Leveson, who led the investigation, called Morgan's denial "utterly unpersuasive."

Britain's long-running phone hacking scandal has led to numerous arrests and the closure of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid. Former Murdoch executives Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson and a host of others are on trial for their alleged role in phone hacking.