(Jerusalem) Israeli police hacked into a person’s phone with the controversial Pegasus software, investigators said Monday, but said they always acted on court orders.
Posted yesterday at 4:09 p.m.
The business daily calcalist of Tel Aviv had claimed in early February that the police had remotely taken control of the smartphone of Israeli citizens via this spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO, without a warrant.
Court orders
“As the team’s checks of the (telephone) numbers that exist in Pegasus’ internal database show, (those of) two people who were court-ordered to be wiretapped have been found,” said said Assistant Attorney General Amit Merari.
“Regarding one of them […]the hack was successful,” she added.
According to Calcalist, the software has notably been used against Avner Netanyahu, one of the sons of former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the latter’s media advisors, leading journalists and mayors.
“Technological checks proved that there was no indication that the Israeli police used the Pegasus system to hack, without a court order, the mobile phone of one of the people on the list published in the press”, said M.me Merari.
“It is expected that the verifications will continue,” wrote the team of Mme Merari.
Monday, calcalist announced that it wanted to “examine again the conclusions […] published” in the daily.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett promised on February 7 a “response” to the accusations against the police, saying that the information “if true, is very serious”. Pegasus should not “be used against citizens”, he added.
NSO is also in the crosshairs of investigations published in the summer of 2021 by a consortium of 17 international media claiming that its Pegasus software had made it possible to spy on the phones of journalists, politicians including heads of state, activists and business leaders in different countries.