Eight senior newspaper staff members from the News of the World's paper, including Prime Minister David Cameron's ex-media chief Andy Coulson, and Rupert Murdoch's United Kingdom newspaper boss Rebekah Brooks have been charged with phone hacking.

Prosecutors announced today that both Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks will face charges of conspiracy to intercept communications for the alleged phone hacking offenses that occurred between the years 2000 and 2006.

Among their alleged victims are Milly Dowler, the missing schoolgirl who was later found murdered in year 2002, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Paul McCartney, and one minor member of the British royal family.

It was the discovery of the phone hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone, that sparked the investigation that led to the closure of the 168-year-old “News of the World” newspaper.

Brooks said in a statement after the announcement,” I am not guilty of these charges.” She went on to say that ” I did not authorize, nor was I aware of, on hacking under my editorship.”

” The charge concerning Milly Dowler is particularly upsetting not only as it is untrue but also because I have spent my journalistic career campaigning for victims of crime. I will aggressively defend these allegations.”

Because of the inclusion of Andy Coulson, who was Prime Minister David Cameron’s ex-media chief, and Brooks, who is a close personal friend of David Cameron, the hacking case ballooned into a national political scandal in Britain.

Among the charges against Coulson, is the hacking of the phones of Charles Clarke and David Blunkett, former home secretaries of the country’s Labour Party.

Rebecca Brooks, and six other people have already been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the phone hacking case, as well is in another case looking into allegations of bribery of public officials. Brooks has proclaimed her innocence in those charges as well.