WASHINGTON (AFP) - A criminal inquiry was launched Friday into how a hacker appeared to breach email accounts belonging to former presidents George HW Bush and George W Bush, as well as other members of their family. “There’s a criminal investigation under way,” Jim McGrath, a spokesman for the elder ex-president Bush, who is now aged 88 and was recently hospitalized, told AFP, following reports that private communications had been accessed. “I can’t get into the specifics,” McGrath added. The investigative website The Smoking Gun reported that hackers had accessed several e-mail accounts and then published personal photos and private correspondence belonging to the former US leaders and their loved ones.