News Corporation chief Rupert Murdoch on Tuesday denied ultimate responsibility for the phone-hacking scandal as he and his son James faced questions from British lawmakers.
Asked by lawmaker Jim Sheridan during a hearing of a parliamentary committee “Do you accept that ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco?”, Murdoch tersely replied: “No”.
Murdoch, his son James and ex-aide Rebekah Brooks faced an extraordinary showdown with MPs over the phone-hacking scandal that now threatens to engulf Britain’s prime minister.
As David Cameron cuts short a trip to Africa, the trio prepared to answer questions over the crisis which has shuttered the News of the World tabloid, forced out two police chiefs and rocked the establishment.
In a further tragic twist, British police were investigating the unexplained death of whistleblower Sean Hoare, a former reporter at the tabloid who first implicated Cameron’s ex-spokesman in the scandal. Dozens of people queued up to get into the hearing of parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport committee, keen to see the circus around three people who were until recently the British media’s most powerful figures.
Rupert Murdoch’s car was mobbed by photographers as it arrived at parliament and then drove off again. It wasn’t clear if he had managed to get in another way. Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, called on them all to issue a full public apology.
“What members of the public will want to know is whether Rupert and James Murdoch and indeed Rebekah Brooks have some remorse for what happened, and are willing to apologise and say they have let down the British people,” he said. Miliband has won plaudits for taking on Cameron over the prime minister’s employment of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his former media chief. Coulson left Downing Street in January and has since been arrested.
The Murdochs’ British newspaper publishing arm News International was meanwhile targeted overnight by the Lulz Security hacker group, which replaced The Sun’s online version with a fake story saying Australian-born Rupert was dead. With his News Corporation group also facing a probe in the United States and shares plummeting, the 80-year-old Murdoch has reportedly engaged public relations consultants to train him for Tuesday’s session.
James Murdoch, chief executive of News Corp’s Europe and Asia operation, promises to be the focus of scrutiny over payments he is alleged to have approved to the victims of hacking.
