Prosecutors drop illegal payments case against Cameron ex-aide Coulson

LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) - British prosecutors have dropped a case against former Rupert Murdoch editor Andy Coulson who had been due to stand trial in June on charges of making illegal payments to public officials.

Coulson, a former editor of the News of the World who was once Prime Minister David Cameron's director of communications, had already been jailed last year for encouraging phone-hacking by journalists on the now-defunct paper.

He had been due back in court to face allegations, which he denied, of also authorising illegal payments to police officers to obtain the telephone directories of Britain's royal family. He had denied the charges.

But the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Friday the cases against him and eight other journalists had been dropped following its review of the London police's Operation Elveden, under which they had been arrested for allegedly making corrupt payments to officials.

The review had been launched after the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction of another News of the World journalist who had been charged under Elveden.

The CPS issued a statement in which it said there was still a realistic chance of conviction in the case of Coulson, who edited the paper between 2003 and 2007, and the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman, who was himself jailed for phone-hacking in 2007. He had denied making illegal payments.

It added: "Taking into account a number of circumstances, including the custodial sentences which have already been served by the defendants and the time since the alleged offending, we have concluded that there is no longer a public interest in prosecuting both defendants and accordingly, we offer no evidence."

So far, 29 journalists have been charged under Operation Elveden and just two have been convicted. (Reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Alison Williams)