MADRID | The boss of the Spanish intelligence services was dismissed by the government on Tuesday after the scandal caused by the revelation that the phones of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Catalan separatists had been tapped.
• Read also: Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish Minister of Defense victims of illegal tapping
“The government has decided today to make a change to the leadership of the CNI”, the National Intelligence Center, announced the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, Minister responsible for the intelligence services, at the end of the Council of Ministers.
First woman appointed, in 2020, at the head of the CNI, Paz Esteban appeared for several days as the designated victim of this spy scandal.
Aged 64, this graduate in philosophy and letters had worked for almost 40 years at the CNI. She will be replaced by Esperanza Casteleiro Llamazares, Ms. Robles’ current number two in the Ministry of Defence.
Questioned Thursday by a parliamentary commission, Paz Esteban admitted that 18 Catalan separatists had been listened to by the CNI, but always with the green light of justice. Among them was the current regional president, Pere Aragonés, when he was vice-president.
The Catalan regional government judged that the dismissal of Ms. Esteban was “not sufficient” and demanded “convincing explanations” to find out “who ordered” and “who allowed” these wiretaps and “who knew about it”.
External attack
Preparing the ground for his ousting, government sources quoted in the media have since assured that the executive had not been informed of these wiretappings, despite the extremely sensitive nature of the Catalan question.
This scandal has shaken Spain since the publication, on April 18, of a report by the Canadian organization Citizen Lab claiming to have identified more than 60 people from the separatist movement whose cellphones were allegedly hacked between 2017 and 2020 by the spyware Pegasus.
But it took on a whole new dimension with the announcement on May 2 by the government that Mr. Sánchez and Ms. Robles had themselves been spied on in May and June 2021 via this same software, created by the Israeli company NSO, in the part of an “external attack”.
The executive, who revealed on Tuesday that the cell phone of Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska had also been listened to in May 2021, however claims not to know who may be at the origin, in the face of questions from the press. on a possible involvement of Morocco.
The Spanish media have abundantly underlined that these wiretaps took place just after the outbreak of a serious diplomatic crisis between Madrid and Rabat caused by the admission to Spain, to be treated there for Covid, of the leader of the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, sworn enemy of the Moroccan authorities.
This crisis ended after the surprise announcement on March 18 by the Spanish Prime Minister of his support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony controlled by Rabat.
Catalan threat
Since the revelations of Citizen Lab, Catalan separatists have been threatening to withdraw their support in Parliament for the minority government of Mr. Sánchez, with the risk of causing his fall before the end of the legislature, scheduled for the end of 2023.
Supported by Podemos, a radical left party member of the government, they are also demanding the head of Ms. Robles, who had initially strongly supported the outgoing leader of the CNI, but the Prime Minister maintained his confidence in her.
For his part, the new leader of the Popular Party (main right-wing party), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, accused Mr. Sánchez of “offering the head of the director of the CNI to the separatists (…) to ensure its survival”.
Pegasus – which allows access to messaging, data or remote activation of the cameras and microphones of a smartphone – and the Israeli company NSO which designed it have been the subject of serious accusations since a consortium of media revealed last summer that this software had been used to spy on the phones of hundreds of politicians, journalists, human rights activists and business leaders.
Mr. Sánchez is the first head of state or government to have announced that he had been spied on using Pegasus.