Pegasus: in France, the Paris prosecutor announces opening an investigation into espionage for the benefit of Morocco
(illustration) Rabat, Morocco, an entrance to the royal palace and seat of government.
According to the survey published Monday, July 19 by several media, Morocco spies thanks to the Pegasus software of journalists and opposition figures.
© Omer Serkan Bakir / Getty Images
Text by: RFI Follow
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The Paris prosecutor's office on Tuesday opened an investigation into the spying of French journalists whose infiltration of phones by the Pegasus software on behalf of the Moroccan state, which disputes it, was revealed on Sunday by a media consortium, a he announced in a press release.
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This investigation was opened following a complaint from the investigative media Mediapart.
It lists ten offenses including "invasion of privacy", "interception of correspondence", "fraudulent access" to a computer system and "criminal association," said Agence France Presse.
The satirical weekly
Le Canard enchaîné
announced that it would join the complaint of Mediapart, two journalists of which were spied on by the Moroccan secret services: the founder of the media Ewdy Plenel and the journalist Lénaïg Bredoux. "
The cell phone numbers of Lénaïg Bredoux and Edwy Plenel are among the ten thousand that the Moroccan secret services have targeted using spyware provided by the Israeli company NSO
", one can read in an article,
"
Project Pegasus ”: Mediapart was spied on by Morocco
, which tells from when (February 2019) and why the two journalists were spied on.
Le Canard Enchaîné
, he would have been targeted in particular through his former collaborator Dominique Simmonnot, now General Controller of places of deprivation of liberty, who also announced that she would personally take legal action.
The Moroccan security service reportedly uses Pegasus systematically against journalists and power critics.
One of the emblematic target journalists of these practices is
Omar Radi, who has just been sentenced to six years in prison
.
► ►
Read also:
Morocco pinned for using the Pegasus spyware, especially against journalists
The investigation also targets other breaches of computer systems, such as the fraudulent entry, extraction and transmission of data, which can potentially be blamed on Pegasus users. The investigations were entrusted to the Central Office for the fight against crime related to information and communication technologies (OCLCTIC), said the prosecution.
According to
the investigation published Sunday by a consortium of 17 international media outlets
, the Pegasus software, developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, would have made it possible to spy on the numbers of at least 180 journalists, 600 politicians, 85 activists of the human rights or 65 business leaders from different countries.
Pegasus spyware, introduced in a smartphone, allows you to retrieve messages, photos, contacts and even listen to calls from its owner.
►
To read also
: “Morocco and Pegasus, move around there is nothing to see!
»On the front page of the Africa press review
The work carried out by the 17 media, including the French dailies
Le Monde
, the British
The Guardian
and the American
The Washington Post
, is based on a list obtained by the France-based network Forbidden Stories and the NGO Amnesty International.
It has, according to them, 50,000 phone numbers selected by NSO customers since 2016 for potential surveillance.
►
Also to listen:
"These software are used to monitor the population at large", according to Edouard Perrin, investigative journalist and president of Freedom Voices Network, guest of RFI.
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