US and British investigators have not found any evidence that papers owned by Rupert Murdoch's media empire hacked the phones of 9/11 victims, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The paper, one of several owned by Murdoch's News Corporation, cited people close to the investigations as saying there were apparently no numbers of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks among those targeted by the disgraced and now-shuttered British weekly the News of the World.
Following shocking revelations that the paper had hacked the phones of celebrities, politicians and a murder victim, the FBI said in July it was investigating whether they had done the same to Americans.
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The allegation concerning the 9/11 victims first surfaced in an article in Britain's Daily Mirror citing unnamed sources, and was one of the most serious charges to be leveled against Murdoch's media empire.
The Journal said investigators were still looking into the 9/11 allegations, and were also exploring whether there may be a "broader pattern of more recent misconduct" at News Corporation's US operations.
News Corporation has come under intense pressure from the phone hacking scandal, which prompted Murdoch's decision on July 7 to axe the News of the World, which had been Britain's biggest-selling weekly.
