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Murdoch, Brooks defend handling of phone-hacking scandal
Media baron Rupert Murdoch denied ultimate responsibility for illegal phone hacking carried out by employees of his News Corp. empire, as he, his son James and former top executive Rebekah Brooks faced tough questioning over the widening scandal Tuesday by British lawmakers.
The sometimes testy hearing before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee follows two weeks in which allegations of phone hacking by News Corp. staff have shaken public faith in the British press and its links with police and politicians.
The hearing, which lasted nearly five hours, wrapping up at about 7:20 p.m. (2:20 p.m. ET), was at one point brought to a dramatic halt as Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a man carrying a plate full of light blue shaving cream or foam.
Murdoch, who was hit full in the face, appeared stunned but not injured, and the hearing resumed after the man was arrested and led away by police.
Britain is in an uproar over the scandal, which could have global implications. It began with the phone-hacking claims involving reporters from News of the World -- which led its parent company, News Corp., to shut the paper down -- and quickly broadened into claims that journalists had paid police for confidential information.
Both Murdochs appeared to try to deflect responsibility from those at the top, while at the same time wanting to make clear they were now taking steps to address the issues.
Asked by one lawmaker, "Do you accept that ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco?" Rupert Murdoch simply responded: "No."
And asked if he had considered resigning, he replied: "No, because I feel that the people I trusted, I don't know at what level, let me down and I think they behaved disgracefully, betrayed the company and me, and it's for them to pay.
"I think that frankly I'm the best person to clear this up."
Rupert Murdoch also told the Parliament committee he has seen "no evidence" that victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States were victims of phone hacking by his employees, and he does not believe it happened.
The FBI is investigating News Corp. over the claim, made by a British newspaper.
The 80-year-old media magnate had earlier said: "This is the most humble day of my life."
In his testimony, James Murdoch said he had "no knowledge" that Brooks and Les Hinton, another former News Corp. senior official -- both of whom have resigned in the past week -- knew of the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World.
He told lawmakers he had "no evidence" they did anything wrong.
Explaining why he had previously given inaccurate statements to the committee, James Murdoch said senior News Corp. officials had learned about the extent of phone hacking by their employees as a result of civil lawsuits against News of the World in late 2010.
He said those in charge were determined to "both to put things right, make sure these things don't happen again, and to be the company that I know that we have always aspired to be."
Reading a statement at the conclusion of the hearing, Rupert Murdoch said: "James and I would like to say how sorry we are for what has happened -- especially with regard to listening to the voice mail of victims of crime."
He said that in his 57 years at the head of his company, "at no time do I remember being as sickened as when I heard what the Dowler family had to endure -- nor do I recall being as angry as when I was told that the News of the World could have compounded their distress."
Milly Dowler was a missing girl whose phone was allegedly hacked. She was later found dead. Revelations that journalists working for News of the World had eavesdropped on her phone and deleted some of her messages to make room for more brought the scandal, which had been simmering for years, to a boil.
Asked how much he knew about day-to-day operations, Rupert Murdoch said the disgraced Sunday tabloid News of the World accounted for less than 1% of his News Corp., which employs 53,000 people around the world.
He had "perhaps lost sight" of what was happening at the newspaper, he acknowledged.
Rupert Murdoch said he and his son were not guilty of willful blindness to the company's problems. Therese Coffey, a member of the parliamentary committee, told CNN she and others were surprised by how little Rupert Murdoch knew of some details.
Brooks, the former editor of News of the World, who went on to become chief executive of its parent company, News International, also appeared before the committee Tuesday to answer questions.
She said News International acted "quickly and decisively" to investigate internally when the extent of the phone hacking became clear and the company had passed the new information to the police.
Brooks said she was aware that News of the World used private detectives, and believed every national newspaper in the U.K. did the same. But she said she has never met Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator accused of carrying out mass phone hacking for her paper, and did not hear his name until 2006.
She also said she has never paid a policeman or sanctioned a payment to the police.
Brooks was editor of the best-selling Sunday tabloid at the time of some of the most serious allegations against it.
She resigned July 15 over the scandal and was arrested and questioned by police two days later. Her lawyer, Steven Parkinson, said Monday his client is not guilty of any crime.
Conservative politician Louise Mensch, who was among the lawmakers to quiz both the Murdochs and Brooks, told CNN she believed the trio had given "full and frank answers" while presenting their version of events.
The thrust of the committee's questioning was that they should have known what was happening at the News of the World, rather than relying on other people, Mensch said.
The ripples of the affair have reached as far as British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is cutting short a trip to Africa to return to London and deal with the crisis.
Cameron has faced strong criticism in recent days over his decision to hire Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor who resigned after staff were jailed for hacking voice mails, as his spokesman. Coulson, who resigned his government post in January, has since been arrested.
Cameron on Tuesday vowed to "stop the obscenity of hacking and get to the bottom of what happened," then put in place measures to prevent such problems from occurring again.
"The police have serious questions to answer about potential corruption and a failed investigation. Politicians have been too close to media owners," Cameron said at a news conference in Nigeria, part of a two-day Africa trip.
"These are big problems, but we are a big country and we are going to sort them out. We're going to get to the bottom of them through a judicial inquiry and we're going to make sure they cannot happen again."
The prime minister will be expected to answer questions during a debate on the scandal in the House of Commons Wednesday.
Both Brooks and Coulson are currently free on bail. They deny knowledge of wrongdoing.
Earlier, the head of London's Metropolitan Police and his deputy -- both of whom have resigned -- appeared before a different committee of Parliament.
Commissioner Paul Stephenson and Assistant Commissioner John Yates defended their actions in failing to authorize a more thorough investigation of the use of phone hacking, following a July 2009 article in the Guardian newspaper revealing that tactic had been far more broadly used than previously reported.
Stephenson said he did not pressure the Guardian to drop its investigation, while Yates said he had no reason at the time to believe the situation was serious enough to warrant a full-scale investigation.
They also defended their hiring of a former News of the World editor, Neil Wallis, for a public relations job at the department. Wallis was arrested last week in connection with the investigation. Yates also said he had nothing to do with helping secure a job for Wallis' daughter.
Murdoch's News Corp. encompasses Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and Harper Collins publishers in the United States. News International -- a British subsidiary of News Corp. -- owns the Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times in Britain.
Source: CNN