Police ‘ignored’ scientist who exposed Dubai ruler phone hacking
POLICE shut down a criminal investigation into phone hacking by Dubai’s ruler without bothering to interview the cyber expert who uncovered it.
Bill Marczak said he was “surprised” that Scotland Yard had not contacted him and then claimed “all lines of inquiry were explored as far as possible” before closing the case.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-maktoum, 72, was found by a High Court judge to have “committed a total abuse” of power and trust by “unlawfully” ordering the hacking of phones and emails of his former wife Princess Haya and her lawyer, Baroness Shackleton, who is also a Conservative peer.
Dr Marczak uncovered the “infiltration” in August last year and via a lawyer, Martyn Day, tipped off Lady Shackleton, who informed her client.
Police began a criminal inquiry but the investigation was closed in Febru- ary. Scotland Yard said on Wednesday that there were “no further investigative opportunities”.
The computer scientist, who is based at a research laboratory at the University of Toronto, told The Telegraph: “The police in London have not spoken to me at all. I was surprised when I saw that they had claimed to have done a thorough investigation. The police didn’t contact me. I wasn’t even aware of the investigation.”
Dr Marczak is a senior research fellow at Citizens Lab, an organisation that has carried out investigations into the use of spyware developed by NSO Group, an Israeli intelligence company, which created Pegasus software that infects a phone before harvesting data.
He discovered that Lady Shackleton’s law firm Payne Hicks Beach was being targeted by servers in the United Arab Emirates.
Further investigation showed the telephones and emails of Princess Haya and Lady Shackleton had been compromised.
Dr Marczak was described in the subsequent civil proceedings as an “impressive witness” by Sir Andrew Mcfarlane, president of the family division. The judge said that Dr Marczak had “presented a detailed, logical account, supported by the core data that he had found”.
Sir Andrew’s judgment, made public on Wednesday, is deeply embarrassing for Sheikh Mohammed, Dubai’s ruler and also vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates. But Sir Andrew’s findings of fact are based on the balance of probabilities, the civil law standard of proof, rather than criminal law which requires a verdict based on “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Princess Haya was targeted by her former husband after she fled to England from Dubai in 2019, triggering a custody battle over their two children, now aged 13 and nine.
The decision to close the Met case will fuel concern that the Sheikh, a friend of the Queen and a close ally of the British Government, has somehow received preferential treatment.
Sheikh Mohammed was previously investigated by Cambridgeshire Police after another of his daughters, Princess Shamsa, was allegedly kidnapped off a Cambridge street after fleeing her father’s Surrey estate in 2000.
The investigation eventually hit a dead end when officers were blocked from going to Dubai.
Scotland Yard declined to comment yesterday. The Met said last week it had received “multiple allegations of crime including unauthorised access and interception of digital devices and offences contrary to the Computer Misuse Act relating to six complainants”.
Sheikh Mohammed said he had “always denied” the allegations.