Summons for Murdoch after rebuff to MPs

Rupert Murdoch will be summonsed to appear before a British parliamentary committee to answer questions over the phone hacking scandal engulfing his UK newspaper empire.

But the chief executive of his News International, Rebekah Brooks, says she will talk to the committee.

The summons decision came after Murdoch turned down an invitation to appear before the House of Commons media committee, which believes it was misled over the scale of hacking by News International during its previous investigation.

But Murdoch, chairman of News International's parent company, News Corp, cannot be compelled to obey the summons, as he is a US citizen.

His son James, News Corp's chief executive in Britain but also an American citizen, will also be summonsed.

He has told the committee he is willing to appear, but not next Wednesday as requested.

Rebekah Brooks is British, and was the only one of the three who could be legally compelled to attend.

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard detectives last night made another arrest in the phone-hacking inquiry. They did not name the 60-year-old man, but British media say he is former News of the World editorial executive Neil Wallis.

Wallis was the paper's deputy editor between 2003 and 2007, and served under former editor Andy Coulson, who has also been arrested.

He left the tabloid in 2009 and is now managing director of the Outside Organisation, an entertainment PR firm.

His arrest is the ninth in police investigations of phone hacking and bribery of police officers.

Earlier yesterday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Rupert Murdoch should be questioned by the public inquiry into the scandal led by a senior judge.

The 80-year-old media mogul could be asked to give evidence under oath by Lord Justice Leveson, who will investigate the behaviour of newspapers and the police in the hacking affair and future press regulation.

Government lawyers believe Murdoch would have to attend the inquiry if he was in Britain, which he normally visits a few times a year.

However, he could not be stopped from leaving the country as soon as such a request was made - or, as an American citizen, be forced to return to Britain from abroad.

Ministers hope he will feel under moral pressure to turn up.

Announcing the judicial inquiry, Cameron said anyone guilty of wrongdoing or sanctioning illegal practices should be banned from running media organisations.

The Prime Minister said the inquiry would "have the power to summon witnesses including newspaper reporters, management, proprietors, policemen and politicians of all parties to give evidence under oath and in public".

Cameron and former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are expected to be called to give evidence.

The first part of the two-pronged investigation will include the culture, practices and ethics of the press; the failure of the current system of newspaper regulation; the relationship between press and politicians and the issue of cross-media ownership.

Part two will look at the specific allegations of unlawful conduct by the News of the World; the original police inquiry into hacking and evidence of corrupt payments to police officers.

Most of this phase will be delayed until after the police investigation.

Cameron also announced plans to change the ministerial code to require ministers to "record all meetings with newspaper and other media proprietors, senior editors and executives - regardless of the nature of the meeting".

This means social as well as formal occasions would be registered.

Leveson said: "The inquiry must balance the desire for a robustly free press with the rights of the individual while ... ensuring that critical relationships between the press, Parliament, the Government and the police are maintained.

"The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?"

- Independent, AP