Katie Hopkins has been questioned by police over allegations of incitement of racial hatred.
The matter is believed to be in connection with a controversial column published in The Sun on 17 April.
In the wake of a capsizing in which 400 migrants are believed to have drowned, Hopkins wrote a piece entitled ‘Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants’ in which she likened those fleeing war-torn nations to “cockroaches” and called for them to be turned away with force.
Katie Hopkins has been questioned by police
The Special Enquiry Team of the Homicide and Major Crime Command are investigating.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “On Thursday, 30 July, a 40-year-old woman attended a central London police station by appointment and was interviewed under caution. She was not arrested.”
Katie Hopkins's column in The Sun
A petition calling for Hopkins to be sacked from the newspaper reached more than 300,000 signatures and even the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights added his voice to the protests.
Jordanian Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said the reality television star had used language in her column similar to that used by newspapers and radio stations in Rwanda before the 1994 genocide that led to hundreds of thousands of people being slaughtered.
Al Hussein urged authorities in the UK to use the law to clamp down on "vicious verbal assault on migrants and asylum seekers in the UK tabloid press", adding: "The Nazi media described people their masters wanted to eliminate as rats and cockroaches. This type of language is clearly inflammatory and unacceptable, especially in a national newspaper.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein says Katie Hopkins used language similar to the Nazi media in her column about migrants
"The Sun's editors took an editorial decision to publish this article, and - if it is found in breach of the law - should be held responsible along with the author."
She told the Press Association: "There's some things about that column, there are some words which in hindsight you'd probably look to pull out of there.
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"But I think overall my message isn't about the idea that we want to see migrants and people suffering, it's an idea that we need to find solutions to problems."
Police are also investigating threats made towards Hopkins in a video released by online Hacker group Anonymous.
She was told to publicly apologise to those she had ‘caused pain’ and ‘show positivity to those who are hurt by you’ if she wanted to ‘feel safe’.
The video message concluded: “If you do not complete the task addressed to you your personal details will spread like a disease through the deepest and darkest corners of cyber space.”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police confirmed that the threats were being investigated.
“Police in Westminster are investigating an allegation of malicious communications against a 40-year-old woman reported on Tuesday, 30 June,” they said.
No arrests have been made but the investigation remains ongoing.
If convicted, the perpetrator could face a fine or up to six months in prison.
