Murdochs to appear at UK press inquiry next week

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son James will appear next week before the British inquiry into press standards set up after the tabloid phone-hacking row, it was announced Thursday. The witness list for the Leveson inquiry revealed that James Murdoch is due to attend Tuesday and Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday and possibly Thursday. Evgeny Lebedev, the Russian owner of The Independent and London's Evening Standard newspapers, and Aidan Barclay, the owner of The Daily Telegraph broadsheet, will give evidence to the inquiry on Monday. Rupert Murdoch owned the News of the World tabloid before he shut it down in July following revelations that its journalists had illegally accessed the voicemails of hundreds of public figures and victims of crime. His youngest son James was executive chairman of News International, the arm of his father's News Corp. which published the scandal-hit tabloid, until he quit in February amid questions about what he knew about phone hacking. Despite denying any knowledge that the practice went beyond a reporter and a private detective who were jailed in 2007, James Murdoch has relinquished all his major media roles in Britain in the past few months. Once considered the heir to the News Corp. empire, the 39-year-old resigned his job at News International, which also publishes The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun, Britain's biggest-selling newspaper. And earlier this month, he also quit as chairman of BSkyB, the British pay-television giant in which his father's company has a 39-percent stake. However, James Murdoch remains deputy chief operating officer of News Corp., which is based in the United States. Both Murdochs appeared before a British parliamentary committee in July to answer questions about phone hacking, and James Murdoch was recalled in November to explain discrepancies in his testimony. The parliamentary hearing in July had to be halted when a protester attacked Murdoch senior with a shaving foam pie. When they appear next week, the Murdochs will be questioned about the relationship the media has with politicians, the public and the police, the three subjects forming the basis of judge Brian Leveson's investigations. The inquiry was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron after the hacking scandal exploded last July with the revelation that the News of the World had accessed the voicemail of a missing teenager who was later found murdered. The scandal reverberated across the British establishment, claiming the jobs of two senior policemen who had ties to the News of the World and sparking the resignation of Cameron's media advisor, a former editor of the tabloid. It has also resulted in dozens of arrests for phone hacking, the alleged bribery of police and other public officials, and computer hacking.