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| Murdoch hacking scandal set to drag into next year Posted: 15 Apr 2011 06:50 AM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - A public apology from Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper arm, designed to contain an escalating phone-hacking scandal, looked to have failed after a judge said civil cases against the firm could run into next year at least.
At a case-management conference called to decide how best to manage a potential flood of lawsuits, the presiding judge on Friday proposed testing four lead cases, including that of actress Sienna Miller, and said they could be ready around the end of the year. So far, 24 public figures who believe their voicemail messages were intercepted by journalists at the popular News of the World tabloid are suing News International, the UK newspaper arm of News Corp. Many more are expected to come forward after News International apologised to eight victims last week and said it would set up a compensation scheme. Last week News Corp deputy chief operating officer James Murdoch, the son of the company patriarch, said the company had managed to "put this problem into a box" but Judge Geoffrey Vos made clear that was not the case. "The show ain't over. That's pretty obvious," Vos told a packed London courtroom. An investigation into newsgathering practices at the News of the World has so far touched celebrities and politicians up to British Prime Minister David Cameron and repeatedly made headline news in rival publications. It has clouded a planned deal by parent company News Corp for a $14 billion buyout of British pay-TV group BSkyB, with critics saying the government should put it on hold until the hacking investigation is over. Vos proposed trying as test cases those brought by Miller, sports agent Skylet Andrew, ex-sports pundit Andy Gray and interior designer Kelly Hoppen because they encompassed a wide range of issues and were closest to being ready for trial. "It's hard to imagine there would be generic questions that would not be raised by those cases," Vos said. He said they could be ready for trial by the end of the year or early next. Police are also carrying out a criminal investigation. They have arrested three senior News of the World journalists so far this year, including one on Thursday. Lawyers acting for the hacking victims and for News International said they were broadly supportive of test cases. News International's News of the World sells almost 3 million copies every Sunday -- more than any of its rivals -- fuelled by front-page tales of celebrity scandal. But a week ago the company admitted that some of those stories may have come from hacking private phone messages and it accepted liability for the first time. News International apologised to eight people including Miller and British politician Tessa Jowell who are suing the company. REPORTERS ARRESTED A senior media lawyer who asked not to be named told Reuters the case would continue to play out in the press as both the criminal investigation and civil cases run on. "News International are hoping to neutralise this by settling with people," he said. "But as long as there are sufficient claimants who haven't been bought off, then it will continue and litigation is a slow process. "This is personal and about the principle and so those claimants may well decide to push on," he said, adding that they would have to weigh up the risk of incurring costs. For years, News International maintained that phone hacking at the tabloid was limited to a few rogue individuals, a stance seen as a bid to protect the reputations of those at the top. Its royal editor and a private investigator were jailed in 2007 for hacking into voicemail messages of aides to Britain's royal family. Editor Andy Coulson resigned, saying he took ultimate responsibility but had not known about the practice. Coulson later became the prime minister's spokesman, but resigned from that position in January as a new police investigation gathered steam. Law firm Mishcon de Reya, which is acting for several of the claimants, says it has received an unprecedented number of enquiries since News International published its statement, and estimates there could be more than 6,000 potential claimants. The case has also clouded the BSkyB deal, which critics fear would increase News Corp's influence over British media by adding 24-hour TV news channel Sky News to a stable that includes the Times of London and third-party radio news. News Corp has undertaken to spin off Sky News if the deal, which would be its biggest ever, goes ahead. The government is expected to approve the deal in the coming weeks. It has said this should be decided on grounds of media plurality and not be linked to the phone-hacking scandal. (Writing by Georgina Prodhan and Kate Holton; Editing by Chris Wickham and Mark Heinrich) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| Activists stunned by killing; vow to stay in Gaza Posted: 15 Apr 2011 06:19 AM PDT GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas security forces, after interrogating a suspect, quickly traced the house where Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni was held captive on Thursday, but they got there too late.
"He was lying on the ground in a corridor between two rooms. It was hard to see him unless someone told you he was there because he was laid against the wall on the floor," a witness who had been at the scene said. "He was dressed in black, the same way he appeared in the video. There was no sign he was shot. It is believed he was either hanged then laid down, or strangled on the ground," said the witness, who spoke on condition on anonymity. In a YouTube clip posted by his captors, Arrigoni was shown prior to his death blindfolded with blood around his eye. A hand was seen pulling his head up by his hair to face the camera. The abduction and killing of Arrigoni shocked Gaza, inured as it is to clashes between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces. The scene of the killing in Gaza's Sheikh Rudawan neighbourhood was very tense. Hamas security cordoned off the house. Gaza's police chief and senior leaders of the internal security service arrived and United Nations personnel arrived to identify the 36-year-old's body. The pro-Palestinian activist and blogger was killed hours before the deadline his Islamist captors had set for Hamas to release one of their imprisoned leaders, Hamas sources said, adding the abductors had no intention of letting him go alive. "NO TOLERANCE" "There will be no tolerance with figures of twisted thinking any more," a Hamas security source said. "Those who give a bad and a wrong image of Islam." Arrigoni had been in the Palestinian territories for 10 years, first in the West Bank. He was asked to leave by Israel and he arrived in Gaza in August 2008 with the first ship of the Gaza Free Movement. Silvia Todeschini, a friend and fellow member of the International Solidarity Movement, worked with Arrigoni in Gaza. "Victor (Vittorio) worked with the Palestinians, he worked for the Palestinians," she told Reuters. "He worked with fishermen, he accompanied fishermen when they were going to fish, in non-violent interpositions" on the maritime limit imposed by the Israeli navy. "He used to work with farmers when they used to go to cultivate their lands near the buffer zone" with Israel, the scene of many shooting incidents over the past four years. "He used to participate in non-violent demonstrations." Todeschini said activist friends did not believe it when they were told police had found the body of Arrigoni. "At the beginning we did not believe it, we thought it was just a joke. But then we saw the video and we believed it." "We really know that most of the Palestinians are not murderers and that they understand that we are here working for them," she said, adding: "We have projects to do here and we have to continue ... This will not kick us out. We will stay. (Reporting by Reuters team in Gaza. Writing by Douglas Hamilton) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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