Testifying, Murdoch Cites a ‘Cover-Up’ in Phone Hacking

Rupert Murdoch criticized many different people for many different things in a morning of scrappy and often blunt testimony before a judicial panel in London. But in the most explosive criticism of all, he unexpectedly accused at least one former employee of presiding over a “cover-up” of phone hacking and other dubious practices at The News of the World tabloid.

“I do blame one or two people,” he said, adding that he did not want to name them because “for all I know they may be arrested,” and then proceeded to make it fairly obvious whom he meant, anyway. One was the now-defunct newspaper’s longtime chief lawyer, Tom Crone; the other appeared to be Colin Myler, its final editor. Murdoch said that as the newspaper’s proprietor, he bore ultimate responsibility for the hacking scandal that spurred him to shut The News of the World down last summer. But he said he had been “shielded” from the truth by his obfuscating employees.