Murdoch phone hacking scandal: millions of News Of The World emails deleted; Did Murdoch kill tabloid to destroy records?

Glynnis MacNicol of Business Insider reports that Reuters law reporter Alison Frankel thinks Rupert Murdoch shut down News of the World so he can legally destroy its records.

Per Frankel:  Murdoch may not be "not be obliged to retain documents that could be relevant to civil and criminal claims against the newspaper--even in cases that are already underway. That could mean that dozens of sports, media, and political celebrities who claim News of the World hacked into their telephone accounts won’t be able to find out exactly what the tabloid knew and how it got the information."

The Guardian is now reporting police are investigating evidence "that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators."

Sky News reports that NOTW staff got to work this morning and found out they can't access their email.

Moneycontrol.com reports News of the World's IT department is outsourced to India's HCL Technologies. On Wednesday Labor MP Tom Watson said an attempt had been made to destroy News International data at the HCL storage facility in Chennai, India. HCL denies this. Other sources have claimed that News International's email data was stored in a warehouse in London.

The Independent reports that MP Tom Watson complained to the ICO that the loss of data was in breach of the Data Protection Act.

     Under this legislation, personal data is not allowed to be transferred to a country that lacks an adequate level of protection. Mr Watson claims India has only basic provisions and so would not comply.

     The revelations could add to the pressure on the Crown Prosecution Service to reopen the long-running News of the World phone-hacking case, after it announced earlier this month that there would be no further charges over the allegations.

     The ICO confirmed that its head of enforcement is now investigating the complaint and would pursue it when the Sheridan trial finishes.

     Mr Watson said yesterday: "When will this scandal ever stop? ...Had the Metropolitan Police seized this electronic file when they did the original inquiry into phone-hacking, we wouldn't be in this position now."