The phones of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense are spied on by Pegasus

TheDuring an emergency press conference in Madrid this holiday, the Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolanos, claimed that the mobile phones of Sanchez and Margarita Robles were infected in May and June 2021 by this program designed by the Israeli company NSO, which has already been the subject of multiple investigations around the world since the summer the past.

condemn ‘Dangerous facts’He confirmed that these were attacks “external”without saying however that it sprang from a foreign country.

“We are absolutely certain that this is an external attack (…) because in Spain, in a democracy like ours, all interventions are carried out by official bodies and with judicial authorization”It is to explain.

“In this case, neither of these cases occurred”Polanyos continued.

He pointed out that the government submitted a complaint about these facts, today, Monday, to the Supreme National Assembly, which is responsible for issues of national or international importance, such as terrorism issues, to shed light on everything.

Once installed, Pegasus provides access to messages, data, or to remotely activate the smartphone’s cameras and microphones.

NSO has always emphasized that this program, whose export requires a green light from the Israeli authorities, can only be sold to countries and only to help them fight terrorism or crime.

However, Pegasus and NSO have faced serious accusations since a media consortium revealed last summer that the software had been used to spy on the phones of hundreds of politicians, women, human rights activists or businessmen.

“you enter” at Sanchez’s laptop in May 2021 and one at Robles in June 2021, according to Bolaños.

They made, in both cases, it possible to extract it A certain amount of dataHe added without further details.

According to El País daily, hackers extracted more than 2.6 gigabytes of data from the prime minister’s phone, or ‘Huge amount of information’And only nine megabytes from the Minister of Defense, but the government is still ignorant The nature and sensitivity of the stolen information.. These are their official phones, which were provided to them by the state, not private.

These discoveries come in the midst of a crisis between the leftist Sanchez government and the separatist circles of Catalonia (Northeast), who accuse the Center for National Intelligence (CNI, intelligence services) of spying on them with Pegasus.

Doubt the honesty of the government

The case erupted on April 18, when Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity project of the Canadian University of Toronto, published a report identifying 65 people from the independence movement, mostly Catalans, whose mobile phones were allegedly hacked between 2017 and 2020 by the software.

In the face of these accusations, Sanchez, without clarifying whether or not there was espionage by state intelligence services, announced the launch of an internal investigation within the CNI and vowed to: “Responsible”.

Catalan separatist circles reacted harshly to Bolanos’ revelations on Monday, questioning the government’s sincerity.

“When the intense espionage against Catalan institutions and independence… silence and apology.”The head of the Catalan regional government, Pierre Aragon, tweeted. “The double standard is clear. Against independence, everything is good”.

Comprehensive spying on foreign policy. Fa dies que ho denunciem meaning to get explanations from the ruler espanyol. When the mass espionage against Catalan institutions and independence, silence and apology. Avui, Tut Ibn Presses. Cal assumes responsibilities ja.

– Pere Aragonès i Garcia 🎗 (perearagones) May 2, 2022

“What’s behind so much dirt?” »a spokeswoman for the regional executive, Patricia Playa, during a press conference in Barcelona, ​​requested the establishment of“A credible, rigorous and independent commission of inquiry”.

The crisis is more serious for Sanchez’s minority government because it needs support in Parliament from the Aragonese party to stay in power until the end of the legislature, at the end of 2023.

For her part, the President of the Catalan Parliament, Laura Porras, invoked the figure of the solid current of the independence movement “A maneuver of power to move from executioners to victims”. “It doesn’t take it”launched on Twitter.

Bolaños explained that inspections are continuing to find out whether other members of the Spanish government have been spied on with Pegasus.