LONDON—A panel of British lawmakers accused two former News Corp executives of misleading Parliament when the pair were questioned over the phone-hacking scandal at the firm's now-closed News of The World tabloid, and exonerated a third one.

A report issued by the panel on Wednesday accused Colin Myler, the newspaper's last editor before it was closed in 2011, and Tom Crone, the News of the World's top lawyer, of "answering questions falsely" about their knowledge of involvement by employees in phone-hacking and other wrongdoing, according to the report by Parliament's Privileges Committee. Messrs. Myler and Crone were among senior News of World executives who testified to the Culture, Media and Sport committee in 2009 and 2011 about how widespread phone-hacking had been at the paper.

The lawmakers cleared a third ex-News Corp executive, the former head of News Corp.'s U.K. division, Les Hinton, of misleading Parliament. They also exonerated the U.K. division, then known as News International.

Messrs. Myler and Crone denied giving misleading testimony. The two men also disputed the findings of the committee, a panel of lawmakers that governs the workings of the British Parliament.

The nonjudicial committee recommended to Parliament Mr. Myler and Mr. Crone be formally admonished. Parliament theoretically has the power to impose fines and even terms of imprisonment for lying to Parliament, though those powers haven't been used for a long time.

News Corp owns Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Hinton was the chief executive of Dow Jones from 2007 to 2011.

The saga dates back to the 2006 arrest of News of the World's royal-family correspondent and a private investigator employed by the Sunday tabloid. Both men were jailed in 2007 for hacking into the phone messages of some members of the royal family. But evidence later surfaced that the practice was more widespread, triggering years of sweeping probes into alleged wrongdoing by the paper and other media.

Criminal prosecutions of some reporters, editors and executives followed, resulting in dozens of convictions, including for phone hacking and bribing public officials. The alleged practices were also the subject of a number of civil lawsuits. British prosecutors last December said they would no longer pursue cases stemming from the police's long-running investigations.

On Wednesday, Messrs. Myler, Crone and Hinton separately criticized the panel for overreach, saying the body had reached its conclusions without properly testing the evidence that the men had given.

"After more than four years, the Committee of Privileges has thrown out the charges that I was guilty of contempt of Parliament and a cover-up of phone hacking," Mr. Hinton said in a statement, adding that its findings were "too little and too late" after he had been publicly vilified at the time.

"It is profoundly disappointing that the Privileges Committee has chosen to act in a manner which serves to discredit parliamentary procedures rather than enhance the very authority and respect which they profess to command," Mr. Myler said in a statement.

Mr. Crone, meanwhile, said in a statement that he stood by his testimony and rejected the committee's findings, which he said ignored completely the evidence that he had given to Parliament.

News Corp's British newspaper unit, News UK, declined to comment.

Write to Alexis Flynn at alexis.flynn@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 14, 2016 17:35 ET (21:35 GMT)

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