Phone-hacking scandal: Murdoch son denies lying, blames former execs

James Murdoch appeared before Britain's parliamentary inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal for the second time Thursday, where he denied lying during his previous appearance in July.

He insisted that he did not know the true extent of phone hacking at the now defunct News of the World paper, and accused two former employees of misleading the hearing when they testified to the contrary.

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Tom Crone, ex-News of the World lawyer, and Colin Myler, its former editor, told the panel they gave Murdoch evidence in 2008 that indicated phone hacking was common practice at the tabloid, reported the Guardian.

James Murdoch said Thursday that evidence was false:

"Any wider spread or evidence or suspicion of wider spread of wrongdoing – none of these things were mentioned to me. […] I believe their testimony was misleading, and I dispute it."

He maintained that he had only recently learned that phone hacking was not limited to a single rogue reporter.

The dispute centers on how much Murdoch knew when, in June 2008, he authorized a large out-of-court settlement to a football union leader who claimed his phone had been hacked.

Myler and Crone say they showed him transcripts of the hacked voicemail messages, allegedly obtained by the News of the World's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck.

Murdoch says he was given enough information to convince him to up the settlement offer, but no more.

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British police are currently sifting through 300 million News International emails in a bid to establish the truth, the BBC reported. They have so far have interviewed 600 out of the possible 5,700 victims of the phone-hacking affair.

The New York Times describes a tense moment in Thursday's questioning when one MP compared News Corp's British subsidiary, News International – which James Murdoch runs – to the mafia, bound by the "omerta" code of silence over wrongdoing. Murdoch dismissed the comparison as "offensive and not true."

He added that the whole of News Corp. had been "humbled" by the scandal.

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