Rupert Murdoch declined to comment further on the escalating phone hacking scandal at his British newspapers, saying on Thursday that he would not be adding to a statement he issued a day earlier.

The billionaire mogul cut an embattled figure as he tried to make his way past a pack of reporters and photographers in his first appearance in the public spaces of the Allen & Co conference.

As a throng of reporters rushed toward him and his wife Wendi, Murdoch, 80, mostly kept his head down and swiftly moved through the pack, only repeating that he had nothing more to add to his statement.

Unlike in previous conferences, the News Corp chief executive officer has kept a low profile since arriving on Tuesday at the exclusive conference tucked away between the lush green Sawtooth mountains of Idaho.

The scandal rocking Murdoch's media empire deepened on Thursday with claims that his best-selling News of the World paper hacked the phones of relatives of British soldiers killed in action.

There have been calls in the UK for News Corp to fire Murdoch's top UK executive, Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the News of the World at the time of hacking incident. Murdoch came out in support of Brooks in a statement on Wednesday, but described the allegations as deplorable and unacceptable.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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