• Politics Outrage in the Government for the alleged espionage of 60 pro-independence leaders such as Aragonès, Puigdemont or Torra

  • Controversy Internal control of the CNI, declassify documents and give accounts in Congress: The Government's measures to counteract the 'catalangate'

Waiting for the measures announced by the Government, and rejected by the Generalitat, to shed light on the alleged espionage of 65 pro-independence leaders after infecting their mobile phones with various programs, including

Pegasus

, sovereignism tries by all means to make a profit of the situation.

Mainly from the political point of view, forcing the Executive of Pedro Sánchez

to meetings to activate the dialogue table after seeing how the current situation caused by the war in Ukraine

or the health and economic crisis after the pandemic displaced any vindication of the 'procés', although the offensive extends to other areas.

And it is that the independence movement considers that the denunciation of this possible espionage should activate the demands in the street, the main engine of the independence process, which for years has been diminishing due to lack of motivation.

For this reason, an offensive was launched on social networks to point to the State as being responsible for the

CatalanGate,

despite the fact that this relationship is not direct in the report published by the independent laboratory, but linked to the University of Toronto,

The Citizen Lab

, from which all the demands of the last days.

This document, entitled

CatalanGate: Extensive Mercenary Spyware Operation against Catalans Using Pegasus and Candiru

, was carried out by several researchers from The Citizen Lab, including

Elies Campo,

of whom the president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC),

Elisenda Paluzie,

said "Without him we wouldn't be here today" at the press conference after the espionage was revealed through a report in

The New Yorker

.

That same day, the title of

CatalanGate

gave its name to a campaign initiated by pro-independence entities to denounce the harassment suffered by 65 pro-independence leaders and directly point to the State as being responsible.

However, the campaign, promoted on social networks, was prepared in advance, as would be indicated by the preparation of the videos broadcast a few hours after the news was known or that the website on which this alleged espionage is uncovered and the European Union is urged to act against Spain was registered, with the name of

catalanGate

last January, as this medium could verify.

sovereign bond

Campo appears as one of those investigated, like his parents, and has extensive links with the independence movement, with several photos with pro-independence leaders on social networks such as former president Quim Torra on a trip he made to the United States.

In addition, in 2020, a position from the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Jordi Solé,

contacted him

with the suspicion that his cell phone could have been spied on.

A few months earlier Citizen Lab alerted several leaders of a security error in WhatsApp that allowed their phones to be infected, as happened with the then President of Parliament, Roger Torrent, who published a book called 'Pegasus.

The state that spies on us 'and others from his party like

Ernest Maragall

or people around

Carles Puigdemont

.

A court in Barcelona is keeping an investigation open for this alleged espionage.

However, from then on, as this medium learned, numerous politicians, businessmen and lawyers linked to the independence movement took their mobile phones to The Citizen Lab to analyze and found the 65 infected by

Pegasus

and

Candiru

that this entity announced in its report.

Even the pro-independence environment commented weeks ago that "a good one is being prepared that will leave the open court case in

Barcelona

in nothing . "

The espionage could have taken place between 2017 and 2020 and that is why the pro-independence movement points directly to Pedro Sánchez, although with nuances depending on the political party, since while ERC wants to make political profit with the JxCat dialogue table, it aspires to confrontation to attract the electorate secessionist

In this sense, the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont asked the Government to "arrest those responsible" for the reported "espionage".

"The teasing continues. They have spied on us without limit, they have violated the lives of dozens of citizens and they know who has done it," Puigdemont said, adding that "the first thing they should do is arrest those responsible, because they know who are, and charge the Prosecutor's Office with a complaint for criminal organization".

judicial helplessness

The pro-independence offensive from the

CatalanGate

also has its judicial focus.

Among those allegedly spied on there are also lawyers who defend pro-independence leaders, both cases such as that of the

procés

in the Supreme Court, for which a sentence has already been passed, as well as in others that are being investigated, such as those of the charges and technicians who organized the votes or

Volhov

's .

For this reason, they want to use The Citizen Lab's report to file nullity proceedings for these actions, considering that they were allegedly spied on while carrying out defense work for their clients.

They consider that it generates "helplessness" and directly affects the right of defense.

In some cases they indicate that telephones intervened by judicial order by the Civil Guard, in the

Volhov case

they could also be infected with Pegasus at that same moment, and for this reason they value requesting an expert test to examine their terminal.

What is clear is that the lawyers will support with this alleged espionage the defense arguments of the independence leaders convicted of sedition in their appeals before the European Court of Human Rights against the Supreme Court ruling.

In this sense, they recall that the Pegasus program, developed by the Israeli company NSO, can only be sold to states, which supports their thesis of the lack of democratic guarantees in Spain with the independence movement.

Among the lawyers who appear on the list of those investigated are

Andreu Van den Eynde, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas

, current JxCat deputy, and

Gonzalo Boye

.

The ERC deputy

Josep Maria Jové,

investigated by the

Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia

(TSJC) for his alleged key role in the organization of 1-O and who played a relevant role in the negotiations that facilitated the death, was also allegedly attacked with Pegasus.

investiture of Pedro Sánchez.

Jové's cell phone was also seized by order of the judge who investigated the preparations for 1-O and was confiscated due to his arrest, at the Civil Guard registration day on September 20, 2017 at different headquarters of the Generalitat .

To unlock it and be able to access its content, the judge authorized the Civil Guard to send his phone to the offices that the Israeli company

Cellebrite

has in Munich, which already then led his lawyer to ask for explanations about his transfer and custody.

Circumstances that his defense believes make more sense once the attack with Pegasus is revealed.

Some of the defenses of the case that is being followed in the Court of Instruction 13 of Barcelona, ​​​​with some thirty former senior officials, technicians and businessmen investigated, are also considering requesting the analysis of their mobiles to find out if at any time they were infected with Pegasus .

Others who could request the annulment of the proceedings within the 'Volhov case' are the former ERC Minister

Xavier Vendrell

and the former CDC official

David Madí

with the argument that they were twice intervened: By the Civil Guard, under judicial authorization, already through the Pegasus program.

In their report, the researchers have not informed the Investigating Court number 1 of Barcelona that they discovered the presence of a second malicious software in the terminals analyzed by court order, although a specific technological study is needed to know if the programs could detect each other.

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