Prince Harry (38) has accused his family of deliberately keeping silent about wiretapping allegations against British tabloid media and of having left him in the dark about it. "The institution undoubtedly withheld information from me about the NGN phone tapping for a long time," the Guardian newspaper quoted court documents as saying on Wednesday.

The younger son of King Charles III. and other celebrities are suing the publisher Associated Newspapers ("Daily Mail"). The allegations against the publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN) of the US-Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, which sells the tabloid "Sun", among other things, were also discussed.

"There was an agreement between the institution and NGN that we would not address or even discuss the possibility of making claims against NGN until the litigation against them relating to phone tapping is resolved," it said it further in Harry's written statements. "The institution has made it clear that we do not need to know anything about phone hacking and it has been made clear to me that the royal family will not sit on the witness stand because it could open Pandora's box." By "institution" is meant the royal family.

Harry and pop star Elton John, his husband David Furnish and others accuse Associated Newspapers of bugging them for years. The publisher emphatically rejects this. There has been a hearing in London since Monday, to which Harry appeared in person. The Duke of Sussex has repeatedly expressed his contempt for the tabloid media, which he blames, among other things, for the accidental death of his mother Princess Diana in 1997.

"I am bringing this lawsuit because I love my country and remain deeply concerned by the Associated's uncontrolled power, influence and criminal activity," Harry testified. "The evidence I have seen shows that the Associated journalists are criminals with journalistic credentials who should be of concern to every one of us. The British public deserves to know the full extent of this cover-up and I see it as so my duty to disclose this." The reports in the "Daily Mail" and the "Mail on Sunday" about his private life caused him great grief and paranoia as a young man, Harry's statement said.