Tabloid, Phone-hacking Trial | featured news

Former senior News Corp. executive Les Hinton is being recalled to testify before a parliamentary committee over a phone-hacking scandal involving journalists at the now defunct News of the World newspaper, a spokesman for the panel said Tuesday.

A high-profile parliamentary panel investigating phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid released embarrassing new evidence Tuesday that the practice of intercepting voice mail had been widely discussed at the newspaper, contradicting assertions by its owners and editors.

The British judge leading the government-backed probe into illegal eavesdropping by journalists will start ordering people to testify and hand over documents "as soon as possible," he said Thursday, as the inquiry launched.