Investigation will cover many potential offenses, including invasion of privacy, announced the Paris prosecutor’s office. In July 2021, a press investigation had revealed this vast case of espionage via the Pegasus software.
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A year after the international scandal caused by a press investigation accusing Morocco of a vast enterprise of espionage via the Pegasus software, the French part of the investigations was entrusted to an examining magistrate. The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed on Friday July 1 that its “cyber” section had opened a judicial investigation into this file.
The investigation will cover many potential offences, including criminal association, invasion of privacy or fraudulent use of “automated data processing systems”. The Paris prosecutor’s office had opened an investigation in July 2021 into the espionage of French journalists, including the infiltration of telephones by the Pegasus software on behalf of the Moroccan State, which disputes it.
An investigation published by a consortium of 17 international media had revealed that the Pegasus software, designed by the Israeli company NSO Group, made it possible to spy on the numbers of at least 180 journalists, 600 politicians, 85 rights activists humans or even 65 business leaders from different countries.
NSO, regularly accused of playing into the hands of authoritarian regimes, had assured that its software was only used to obtain information against criminal or terrorist networks. These revelations sparked worldwide outrage from human rights organizations, the media and political leaders. Many of them had taken legal action in return.