Lawmakers want evidence from media mogul on phone hacking

LONDON - British lawmakers on Tuesday asked Rupert Murdoch, News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and chairman James Murdoch to give evidence to them on phone hacking, a spokeswoman said.

News International, the British newspaper arm of Murdoch's global media empire, said it would "cooperate".

"I can confirm that Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch have been asked to give evidence to the culture, media and sport select committee," a spokeswoman for the committee told AFP.

They could "possibly" appear on July 19, the last meeting of the committee before parliament ends for the summer, she said. "The time and date has not been agreed yet and we are waiting for a reply.

"It would be in relation to current allegations of phone hacking and previous evidence given by News International executives to the predecessor committee's report on press standards, privacy and libel."

She said letters asking for their appearance had not yet been sent out but the trio "have been orally informed".

A News International spokeswoman said in a statement: "We have been made aware of the request from the CMS Committee to interview senior executives and will cooperate. We await the formal invitation."

Tom Watson, a member of parliament with the main opposition Labour party and a member of the committee, said the committee "will be sitting next Tuesday and we expect them to attend".

"I suspect that some of them might be too cowardly to turn up but that is up to them to decide," he added.

Watson said MPs wanted to ask Brooks about her knowledge of payments to the police when she was editor of the News of the World from 2000 to 2003, and then when she moved to edit its sister daily, The Sun.

In 2003, Brooks, then known as Rebekah Wade, admitted to the culture committee that "we have paid the police for information in the past".

They also want to quiz James Murdoch on his involvement "in authorizing payments to silence" Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, after his phone was hacked.

Also on Tuesday, former British prime minister Gordon Brown accused Murdoch's News International media group of using criminals to illegally obtain information about his private life and of the shock he felt when it published a story about his baby's ill health.

He said the Sunday Times newspaper had obtained access to his building society account and other personal files, and said he had seen evidence collated by the Guardian newspaper that News International was using known criminals to obtain private information.

"My tax returns went missing at one point, medical records have been broken into. I don't know how all this happened but I do know ... that in two of these instances there is absolute proof that News International was involved in hiring people to get this information," he said.

"And I do know also that the people that they work with are criminals, criminals with records, criminals who sometimes have records of violence as well as records of fraud."

He said he was devastated when told in 2006 by News International's Sun newspaper that it was to publish a story that his newborn son Fraser had cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease which often leads to an early death for the sufferer.

AFP-Reuters-AP