LONDON, July 18, (Agencies): British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday called for an emergency session of Parliament to brief lawmakers on the spreading phone hacking scandal, trying to gain control of a crisis that is threatening Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, the upper echelons of London’s police force and the country’s leader himself.
Parliament is due to break for the summer on Tuesday after lawmakers grill Murdoch, his son James and his former British chief executive Rebekah Brooks about the scandal, but Cameron said “it may well be right to have Parliament meet on Wednesday so I can make a further statement.”
Cameron was speaking in Pretoria, South Africa, on the first day of a two-day visit to the continent. He had planned a longer trip, but cut it short as his government faces a growing number of questions about its relationship with the Murdoch empire and a scandal that has taken down top police and media figures with breathless speed.
Opposition leader Ed Miliband said Cameron needed to answer “a whole series of questions” about his relationships with Brooks, James Murdoch and Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor later hired as Cameron’s communications chief.
“At the moment he seems unable to provide the leadership the country needs,” Miliband said.
In the latest twist in the legal saga, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, Britain’s anti-fraud agency, said Monday it was giving “full consideration” to a request from a lawmaker that it open an investigation into Murdoch’s News Corp.

The office said any possible probe would be limited to News Corp activities in Britain, but it added that it is ready to assist authorities in the US, where the FBI has already opened an inquiry into whether 9/11 victims or their families were also hacking targets of News Corp journalists.
Cameron insisted his government had “taken very decisive action” by setting up a judge-led inquiry into wrongdoing at the newspaper and relations between politicians, the media and police.
“We have helped to ensure a large and properly resourced police investigation that can get to the bottom of what happened, and wrongdoing, and we have pretty much demonstrated complete transparency in terms of media contact,” Cameron said.
But he is under pressure after the resignation of London police chief Paul Stephenson and the arrest Sunday of Brooks — a friend of his — on suspicion of hacking and police bribery.
Brooks was detained and questioned for nine hours on Sunday before being released on bail. On Monday, her lawyer, Stephen Parkinson, released a defiant statement professing her innocence and claiming police faced serious questions about her arrest.

Parkinson said police would “have to give an account of their actions” considering “the enormous reputational damage” Brooks’ arrest had caused to the ultimate social and political insider.
Brooks has hired an attorney experienced in helping out high-profile clients in a squeeze. Parkinson advised former Prime Minister Tony Blair during an inquiry into the Iraq War, helped guide former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major during an inquiry into mad cow disease, and represented former police chief Ian Blair during the investigation into the killing of an unarmed Brazilian man mistaken for a terrorist.
Stephenson, the police chief, resigned Sunday over his ties to a former News of the World executive editor who has been arrested over the scandal. In his resignation speech Stephenson made pointed reference to Cameron’s hiring of Coulson, a former editor of the shuttered tabloid who was arrested earlier this month over hacking.
Cameron said the situations of the government and the police were “completely different,” because allegations of police corruption “have had a direct bearing on public confidence into the police inquiry into the News of the World and indeed into the police themselves.”
Other senior police officers are under fire, including Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who decided against re-opening the investigation in 2009 following reports in the Guardian newspaper. Yates also stepped down from his post Monday.

Brooks’ arrest was the latest blow for Murdoch, the once all-powerful figure courted by British politicians of all stripes. Now Murdoch is struggling to tame the scandal, which has already destroyed News of the World, cost the jobs of Brooks and Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton and sunk the media baron’s dream of taking full control of a lucrative satellite broadcaster, British Sky Broadcasting.
Murdoch is eager to stop the crisis from spreading to the United States, where many of his most lucrative assets — including the Fox TV network, 20th Century Fox film studio, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post — are based. Sky News reported Monday that News Corp had appointed a senior lawyer to head an internal probe on phone hacking.
Brooks’ arrest had thrown into doubt her appearance on Tuesday before the committee that also will quiz Rupert and James Murdoch. But her spokesman, David Wilson, said Monday she planned to attend.
The resignation of two of its top officers in less than 24 hours over their failure to tackle Britain’s phone-hacking scandal leaves London’s police force with its biggest crisis in decades.
Home Secretary Theresa May on Monday announced a parliamentary review of police corruption and a police inspectorate inquiry after Police Commissioner Stephenson and Assistant Commissioner John Yates stepped down.

The Met has been criticised for its handling of the original 2006 investigation into voicemail hacking at the News of the World tabloid, and a decision by Yates in 2009 not to review the evidence it had.
But more damaging is the question of whether Scotland Yard was too cosy with Murdoch’s News International, and whether some officer received payments from the paper.
“Clearly at the Metropolitan Police the issues have been around whether or not the investigation is being pursued properly,” Cameron said Monday.
The Met is running two investigations into the scandal. Operation Weeting is probing allegations of phone hacking, while Operation Elveden is investigating allegations of inappropriate payments to police.
Stephenson, Britain’s top police officer, stepped down on Sunday after two years in charge, becoming the highest-profile figure to quit in the affair. Yates then resigned on Monday.
Stephenson was personally blamed over the force’s employment of former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis as a media advisor for 11 months from October 2009. When he quit he said his integrity was “completely intact”.
Wallis, who was arrested last week over hacking claims, also worked for the luxury spa resort which hosted Stephenson for five weeks while he recuperated from operations to remove a pre-cancerous growth.
Stephenson met News International aides 18 times from 2006 to 2010, including eight meetings with Wallis when he was at the paper.

Whistleblower
A whistleblower in Britain’s phone-hacking scandal, former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare, was found dead at his home Monday but there appeared to be no suspicious circumstances, police said.
Hoare alleged in interviews with The New York Times newspaper and the BBC last year that the tabloid’s former editor Andy Coulson, who went on to become press chief to British Prime Minister David Cameron, know about voicemail hacking.
He was found dead early Monday at his home in Watford, north of London, Hertfordshire Police said in a statement.
“At 10:40 am today police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street,” the force said.
“Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.
“The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing.”
The Guardian newspaper said Hoare had long-term drink and drug problems.
Hoare claimed that Coulson knew about the paper’s staff eavesdropping on private messages.
His claims were passed to Scotland Yard but they said he declined to give evidence.