The scandal led Murdoch to shut the 168-year-old newspaper and spurred wide-ranging criminal investigations into phone hacking, bribery and other illegal behaviour by the nation's newspapers.
It also has rattled the country's media, police and political establishments. Brooks and Coulson — once top aides to Murdoch and associates of Prime Minister David Cameron — are charged along with six others on a variety of counts related to phone hacking, bribing officials and obstructing justice. All deny the charges.
Edis revealed that four others pleaded guilty before the trial began. Three worked at the News of the World: Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup, all former news desk editors.
Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was convicted of phone hacking in 2007, also pleaded guilty earlier this year to three new counts of conspiring to hack phones.
Edis said Mulcaire was paid about 100,000 pounds a year by the newspaper to hack the phones of celebrities, politicians and royals, and sometimes their friends and families.
He said it was "an extraordinary arrangement and one which must have required high-level approval". Thousands of pages of Mulcaire's notes containing details of alleged targets will form a key part of the prosecution case.
