Probe into hacking ignores key Canadian
U.K. police shut down a criminal investigation into phone hacking by Dubai’s ruler without interviewing the cyber expert who uncovered it.
University of Toronto’s Bill Marczak said he was “surprised” Scotland Yard had not contacted him, while claiming “all lines of inquiry were explored as far as possible.”
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.
Marczak uncovered the “infiltration” in August 2020 and via a lawyer tipped off Lady Shackleton, who informed her client.
Police began a criminal inquiry but the investigation was closed in February. Scotland Yard said on Wednesday there were “no further investigative opportunities.”
The computer scientist, 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.”
Marczak is a senior research fellow at Citizens Lab, an organization that has carried out investigations into the use of spyware developed by Israeli intelligence company NSO Group, 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 phones and emails of Princess Haya and Lady Shackleton had been compromised.
Marczak was described in the subsequent civil proceedings as an “impressive witness” by judge Sir Andrew Mcfarlane, who said he had “presented a detailed, logical account, supported by the core data he had found.”
Sir Andrew’s judgment, made public on Wednesday, is embarrassing for Sheikh Mohammed, Dubai’s ruler and also vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates.
But the findings of fact were 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 after she fled to England from Dubai in 2019, triggering a custody battle over the couple’s 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 received preferential treatment.
Scotland Yard declined to comment yesterday. Sheikh Mohammed denied the allegations.