Phone hacking: News International mass-deleted (hundreds of thousands) emails, tech firm says

Source: The Guardian

The technology firm HCL has told the home affairs select committee it was aware of the deletion of hundreds of thousands of emails at the request of News International between April 2010 and July 2011, but said it did not know of anything untoward behind the requests to delete them.

HCL has sent the letter to the home affairs select committee chairman, Keith Vaz , revealing it had been involved in nine separate episodes of email deletion.

HCL says it is not the company responsible for emails on the News International system that are older than a couple of weeks. It says another unnamed vendor is responsible, but confirms it has co-operated with this vendor in deleting material.

Through a letter from HCL's solicitors Stuart Benson, the firm says: "My client is aware of nothing which appeared abnormal, untoward or inconsistent with its contractual role." It adds: "It is entirely for News International, the police and your committee as to whether there was any other agenda or subtext when issues of deletion arose and that is a matter on which my client cannot comment and something you will no doubt wish to explore direct with News International."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/01/phone-hacking-news-international-emails

Thanks for the thread, Turborama.

But they probably don't know the half of it.