David Cameron cuts short Africa trip to deal with hacking scandal

David Cameron has cut his trip to Africa short amid the phone hacking scandal that on the weekend resulted in the arrest of his neighbor and friend, Rebekah Brooks, the ex-editor of the disgraced Murdoch-owned tabloid News of the World.

Cameron, on his first official sub-Saharan Africa trip, is in the continent for a range of trade meetings, the Telegraph reports.

He praised Africans who had campaigned to end national debt and encouraged them to reduce their reliance on aid.

(From GlobalPost on the hacking scandal: British press scandal widens (PHOTOS))

But Cameron was under pressure to return to the U.K. after Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, the U.K. subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., was arrested as part of the investigation into phone hacking and police corruption.

Cameron and Brooks had been friends and neighbors, who were photographed going riding together and who socialized at Brooks’ Oxfordshire home over the Christmas period.

Cameron has also been criticized for his decision to employ News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, as his media chief until January, Bloomberg reports. Coulson was also arrested earlier this month over hacking.

The prime minister will fly home late Monday to allow him to finalize the arrangements for judge-led inquiry into the extraordinary phone hacking saga.

Cameron’s plans to visit Rwanda and Sudan were scrapped — with the trip being shortened from four days to two days.

When he is back in Britain, Cameron will examine and discuss the terms of Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry.

According to the Guardian, the first area will look at the terms of reference for focusing on media regulation and the second, presided over by Leveson, that will examine the alleged wrong doing and relations between the police and the media.

This element of the inquiry will occur when the criminal investigation is finished.