Two weeks before an already controversial World Cup in Qatar, the Gulf country is at the heart of a new controversy, accused of being at the origin of the espionage by hackers of nearly fifty personalities. within the framework of the organization of the competition.
According to a survey published Sunday in the British daily The Sunday Times, journalists, lawyers, or even the former boss of European football Michel Platini as well as a French senator, have been the targets of hackers hired to protect the reputation of Qatar.
These personalities have most often been targeted for their work or critical positions on the awarding and organization of the Football World Cup, which kicks off on November 20.
Qatar is implicated for the treatment of workers on construction sites linked to the competition, respect for the rights of women and LGBT people, or even the possible use of air conditioning in the stadiums where the matches will be played.
Calls for a boycott of the competition have multiplied, without meeting massive echoes so far, for an event followed every four years by billions of people around the world.
In France, five major cities including Paris have given up installing giant screens and “fan zones” to broadcast matches during the competition.
Among the personalities targeted by the group of hackers based in India, there are in particular journalists, such as that of the Sunday Times Jonathan Calvert, who investigated the alleged bribery that led to the awarding of the race to Qatar in 2010.
Also spied on were French senator Nathalie Goulet, who had accused Qatar of financing “Islamic terrorism”, and American-Hungarian lawyer Mark Somos, who filed a complaint against the ruling family of Qatar before the High Council of Nations. united for human rights.
“Deeply shocked”
The former president of UEFA, Michel Platini, yet a great defender of Qatar’s candidacy to organize the World Cup, would also have been targeted.
This would have happened shortly before he was heard by French justice as part of an investigation into suspicions of corruption in the awarding of the World Cup to the gas emirate.
In reaction to the assertions of the English newspaper, Mr. Platini said he was “surprised and deeply shocked”, in a press release sent to AFP.
The former captain of the France team is studying “all the legal action he is determined to take – if the information from the Sunday Times are accurate -, to what appears to be a manifest and villainous violation of his privacy, ”it is specified.
According to data retrieved by the Sunday Times and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) this year, it was from 2019 that these operations began to hack mailboxes or take remote control of the microphones and cameras of the computers of targeted people.
Qatar denial
“The survey clearly indicates that the client [des hackers] is the host of the next World Cup: Qatar,” write the journalists.
The use of the Indian group of hackers would have been made through former British police or intelligence officers, now working in the private sector, details the Sunday Times investigation.
In a statement sent to AFP, a Qatari official denounced “manifestly false and baseless” allegations, which are based “on a single source who claims that his client was Qatar, without providing the slightest proof”.
“Qatar will not sit idly by […]and all the legal options at our disposal are being studied to ensure that those responsible will be held to account,” he further warns.
Beyond Qatar, the Sunday Times investigation reveals many other cases of hacking of personalities carried out by the same Indian group, on behalf of English law firms and autocratic regimes.