Spain: Pegasus spyware hit PM’S cellphone twice in 2021

MADRID – The cellphones of Spain’s prime minister and defense minister were infected last year with Pegasus spyware, which is available only to countries’ government agencies, authorities announced Monday.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s mobile phone was breached twice in May 2021, and Defense Minister Margarita

Robles’ device was targeted in June, Cabinet Minister Félix Bolaños said.

The breaches, which resulted in a significant amount of data being obtained, were not authorized by a Spanish judge, a legal requirement for national covert operations, Bolaños said in Madrid.

“We have no doubt that this is an illicit, unauthorized intervention,” Bolaños said. “It comes from outside state organisms, and it didn’t have judicial authorization.”

The Socialist-led government was under intense scrutiny during those months over its handling of a major foreign policy spat with Morocco and gripped by a tense domestic dispute over the release of jailed separatists from Spain’s restive Catalonia region.

Bolaños refused to speculate who might have been behind the Pegasus breach nor why. The National Court opened an investigation into the breach, and a parliamentary committee on intelligence affairs was set to look into it.

In May 2021, more than 8,000 migrants forced their way into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. Spain deployed troops and armored vehicles there to stop more migrants getting into its territory.

That crisis came as Rabat and Madrid were at odds over Spain agreeing to provide COVID-19 care to a prominent Sahrawi leader fighting for the independence of Western Sahara.