Murdoch's Sun hits back at crackdown

LONDON - Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid The Sun on Monday said police raids against its journalists were part of a "witchhunt" that had weakened press freedom in Britain.

Days before Murdoch was due to fly in to reassure staff that he would not close the paper, Associate Editor Trevor Kavanagh said in an editorial that police were treating staff "like members of an organized crime gang".

"The Sun is not a 'swamp' that needs draining," wrote Kavanagh, who was political editor at The Sun from 1984 to 2005, a time when Britain's biggest-selling paper boasted that it could swing election results.