LONDON - He didn't see. He wasn't told. He didn't know.
Called back to Britain's Parliament after former News Corp. employees challenged his credibility, senior executive James Murdoch insisted he'd been kept in the dark about widespread phone hacking at his now-defunct News of the World tabloid, blaming two of his senior lieutenants for failing to warn him of the paper's culture of criminality.
"None of these things were mentioned to me," he told an often-skeptical House of Commons media committee.
Over more than 2 1/2 hours of questioning, Murdoch stuck to that line.
"It was not shown to me," he said of an explosive email which implicated one of his top reporters in illegally eavesdropping on mobile phone voice mail messages.
"It didn't occur to me to probe further," he said when quizzed about the legal advice his subordinates had supplied him.
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"It didn't seem necessary for me to ask for a copy," he said of a seven-page document warning of overwhelming evidence of illegal behavior at his company.
Speaking quickly and confidently, Murdoch laid the blame at the door of ex-News of the World Editor Colin Myler and former in-house lawyer Tom Crone, both of whom resigned soon after the scandal broke earlier this year.
Over the past few months, the pair have challenged the credibility of their former boss, accusing Murdoch of not telling the truth when he claimed they never told him about the incriminating email back in 2008.
Murdoch, 38, made one important concession to their version of events - acknowledging that he'd been briefed on the incriminating email back in 2008 - but insisted that its importance was kept from him.
"What never happened is Mr. Crone and Mr. Myler showing me the relevant evidence, explaining to me the relevant evidence - and its relevance - or talking about wider spread criminality," Murdoch said. "That simply did not happen."
In a statement, Crone attacked Murdoch's testimony. "At best, his evidence on the matter was disingenuous," he said.
Myler also hit back, saying his own evidence to the committee "has been entirely accurate and consistent."
"I stand by my account of the meeting with James Murdoch on 10 June 2008," he said in a statement.
