Spain: an investigating judge wants to question the boss of the Israeli group NSO

An investigating judge at the National Court takes up the spy case "Pegasus", the name of a computer device owned by the Israeli company NSO, which makes it possible to infect mobile phones and their extract all the information contained.

(Illustrative image) © AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

3 mins

An investigating judge of the National Audience (

) takes up the Pegasus spy case, named after a computer device, owned by the Israeli company NSO, which makes it possible to infect cell phones and to extract from them all the information contained.

José Luis Calama thus responds to the request of the State Prosecutor's Office, which asked to investigate how and why spying on the phones of the head of government Pedro Sanchez and several ministers took place in 2021.

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With our correspondent in Madrid

,

For the investigating judge José Luis Calama, there was no doubt about what had to be done, namely to open an investigation into the espionage that took place against the cell phones of Pedro Sanchez and several of his ministers, and not the least, those of Agriculture, Defense and the Interior in May 2021.

The judge wants to question in Israel the boss of the NSO company that created the Pegasus software, Spanish justice said on Tuesday.

“ 

,” said said the National Audience.

Such a request will have to receive the green light from the Israeli authorities, a procedure that can take months.

So far, the rogatory commission has only requested information from NSO on “ 

” Pegasus.

Morocco, at the center of rumors

Investigating judge of the National Audience since 2018, José Luis Calama is renowned for having initiated proceedings against the Chinese mafia and against those responsible for a pyramid scam linked to cryptocurrencies.

This time, the magistrate wants to know who the author or authors of the espionage are, since, he argued, the owners of these phones run state bodies, and therefore security is at stake. from Spain.

Many rumors suggest that Morocco could be behind these espionage, while the Pegasus system would have infected the phone of the head of government at the same time as Spain had welcomed the Saharawi leader Brahim Ghali, angering Rabat.

However, say several sources, it will be extremely difficult, if not almost impossible, to prove it.

Catalan separatists and members of the government under surveillance

In a statement, the National Audience also reveals that the magistrate, who lifted the secrecy of the investigation, already heard on Friday the former head of the Spanish intelligence services, Paz Esteban, who paid the bill for this scandal and was

by the government.

This scandal initially erupted on April 18 following the publication of a report by the Canadian organization Citizen Lab claiming to have identified more than 60

whose laptops were allegedly hacked between 2017 and 2020 by the Pegasus software.

The Spanish government has admitted to having spied on 18 of them. But it took on a whole new dimension with the announcement by the government that Pedro Sanchez and his Minister of Defense had themselves been spied on in May and June 2021

this same software.

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• Spain

• Intelligence

• pedro sanchez

• Pegasus