Bezos phone hack: UN seeks probe
SAN FRANCISCO/CAIRO: UN experts have demanded an immediate investigation by US and other authorities into allegations that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was involved in a plot to hack the phone of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.
Special rapporteurs Agnes Callamard and David Kaye said on Wednesday they had information pointing to the “possible involvement” of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the alleged 2018 cyberattack. Saudi officials dismissed the allegations as absurd.
Callamard, the special rapporteur for extra-judicial killings, and Kaye, special rapporteur for free expression, said a forensic analysis of the alleged hacking, which a person familiar with the matter said had been commissioned by Bezos, concluded his phone was probably hijacked by a malicious video file sent from a Whatsapp account purportedly belonging to the crown prince in April or May of 2018.
They said the analysis, which they deemed credible, found that within hours of receiving the video, there was “an anomalous and extreme change” in the device’s behaviour, with the level of outgoing data from the phone jumping nearly 300-fold.
The allegations could further damage relations between Bezos and Riyadh, and risk harming the kingdom’s reputation with foreign powers and investors. The alleged cyberattack is said to have taken place months before the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi critic and columnist for the Bezos-owned Washington Post.
Prince Mohammed said last year the killing was carried out by rogue operatives and that he did not order it.