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Murdoch Firm Accused of Trying to Thwart Investigation

Jul 20, 2011  •  Post A Comment

A parliamentary panel is alleging the Murdoch empire has made "deliberate attempts" to thwart its investigation into the phone-hacking scandal, The New York Times reports.

The House of Commons home affairs select committee is one of two U.K. panels that interviewed some of the people involved in the scandal, including two police officials who resigned in the past week over their ties to the former deputy editor of News Corp.’s now defunct News of the World tabloid, the story notes.

The report from the panel said there had been deliberate attempts by News International to thwart the various investigations into the alleged voice-mail hacking.

Both Rupert and James Murdoch denied that they knew about the hacking at the time it happened.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron went before Parliament today to defend his actions in the hacking scandal.

The Times piece reports: “Mr. Cameron returned home early from an African trade tour late Tuesday to face questions about his relationships with former senior figures at News International, the British subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s global News Corporation, particularly his choice of a former Murdoch employee, Andy Coulson, as his director of communications. Mr. Coulson, a former editor of The News of the World tabloid, resigned from the prime minister’s office in January and was among 10 people who were arrested in the affair.”

Cameron said of the decision to hire Coulson: “I regret and I am extremely sorry about the furor it has caused. With 20-20 hindsight and all that has followed, I would not have offered him the job and I expect that he wouldn’t have taken it. But you don’t make decisions in hindsight, you make them in the present. You live and you learn and, believe you me, I have learned.”

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