James Murdoch denies misleading UK Parliament

Says he is not a ‘mafia boss’; If guilty of hacking, would not rule out closing The Sun.

News Corp’s Asia and Europe head, James Murdoch, on Thursday asserted that he had not misled the UK Parliamentary committee while giving evidence for the probe into the phone hacking scandal.

James Murdoch, who is the fourth of the six children of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, on Thursday faced the parliamentary select committee that is looking into the scandal that led to the closure of News of the World (NoTW) earlier this year.

Facing a two and half hour grill Murdoch said that he was not aware of certain emails, which if proven otherwise would mean he was indeed aware of the level of criminality his colleagues were involved in the process of getting news stories.He blamed some of his former colleagues in the group for involvement in the phone hacking scandal and misleading the committee and denied any direct involvement.

He claimed lawyer Tom Crone and former NoTW editor Colin Myler gave “misleading” evidence to the committee.

Tom Watson, a labour MP and member of the select committee who is now the most vocal critic of the Murdoch empire, created a stir on Thursday by calling James Murdoch a ‘mafia boss’. “Mr Murdoch, you must be the first mafia boss in history who did not know he was running a criminal enterprise,” said Watson.  

A visibly distributed Murdoch said, “Mr Watson, please,” before turning to the committee chairman in an attempt to ask him to reign in Watson from continuing such a line of questioning.Another member of the committee asked if Murdoch will consider closing down the daily tabloid The Sun, if it was proven to be involved in phone hacking scandal, to which Murdoch answered in affirmative.“If it’s revealed that The Sun does appear in the Mulcaire file, would you close the paper like you did the News of the World?”

To this James Murdoch said, “ I think it’s important not to prejudge the outcome of any of the investigations.  I don’t think we can rule (out) any corporate reaction to behaviour or wrongdoing.”

News Corp has come under serious investigation in the UK over the phone hacking scandal that had led to the closure of the its weekly tabloid News of the World after being in print for over 160 years.  The scandal also saw the loss of several leading executives in the UK and US.