Prince Harry and Rupert Murdoch reach financial settlement to resolve spying lawsuit

(AFP) Prince Harry, who accuses Rupert Murdoch's media group of illegal practices to access his privacy, reached a financial settlement with the publisher, the lawyer for the son of King Charles III, David Sherborne, announced Wednesday.

The Murdoch-owned News Group Newspapers (NGN) apologized to Harry "for the wiretapping, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators" instructed by the group, Prince Harry's counsel told the High Court in London, adding that he will be paid "substantial compensation."

The trial over the prince's allegations was to have begun Tuesday, but that first day was adjourned after a lawyer for the Australian tycoon signaled that Harry was "very close" to accepting a financial settlement with the publisher.

The move, the same one taken by hundreds of other whistleblowers previously, avoids a weeks-long lawsuit by the prince against NGN, owner of the now-defunct News of the World and The Sun, which he accuses of unlawfully invading his privacy between 1996 and 2011.

Rupert Murdoch's group apologized for illegal practices at the News of the World, which it had hastily shut down in 2011, but denied the existence of similar actions at The Sun and denied any attempt to cover up the scandal.

In addition to the several lawsuits he has filed in recent years against these media for illegally obtaining information, the prince reproaches those newspapers for having mistreated his wife, Meghan Markle, which contributed to the couple's 2020 departure to the United States.