LONDON - Prime Minister David Cameron's former communications chief is facing a grilling at Britain's media ethics inquiry about his time as editor of the tabloid newspaper at the heart of the phone-hacking scandal.
Andy Coulson says he did not know that News of the World employees were illegally eavesdropping on the voice mail messages of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims.
He left the paper in 2007 after a reporter and a private investigator were jailed for hacking, and later became Cameron's media chief.
He quit that job in January as the hacking scandal intensified.
His appearance at the Leveson Inquiry will be uncomfortable for Cameron, whose relationships with senior executives of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has embroiled him in the hacking furor.
