India, Aug. 13 -- Heidi Beirich, a former Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) official, was arrested in California on Wednesday, August 12, in a federal case tied to the nonprofit's secret payments to informants inside extremist groups. Prosecutors accuse Beirich of helping oversee payments made with donor money and of taking part in a scheme involving false bank records and concealed transactions. The charges are part of the wider Justice Department case against the SPLC. The allegations have put Beirich, a longtime researcher of far-right groups, at the centre of a legal fight over how the organisation funded its informant work.

1. Beirich previously led the SPLC's Intelligence Project, which tracked extremist and hate groups in the US....