BARCELONA, May 5 (AP): Hacking revelations involving the cell phones of politicians have put Spain’s typically circumspect intelligence agency in an uncomfortable spotlight.
In one case, Spain’s National Intelligence Centre is accused of gross negligence for allowing unknown sources to tap the phone in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s pocket with the Pegasus spyware.
Although Spain has refused to point a finger at Morocco, the dates the phones of Sánchez and Defence Minister Margarita Robles were hacked last year match up with a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
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The intelligence agency, known by its Spanish acronym CNI, also is accused of using the Pegasus programme to hack the phones of over 60 Catalan separatists.
Amid the back-to-back scandals involving alleged espionage, plans for a public ceremony to observe CNI’s 20th anniversary were postponed.
Agency director Paz Esteban López is appearing on Thursday before a select parliamentary committee behind closed doors, where she will be able to break the secrecy code that prohibits members of the government from revealing the workings of her agency.
Esteban, the first woman to serve as CNI’s director, will speak to just 11 members of parliament, all of whom will have to swear not to reveal what they are told.
Spain’s Parliament voted to let members of Catalan and Basque separatist parties sit on the special committee.
The highly anticipated meeting at Spain’s Parliament building in Madrid is set to take place inside an austere meeting room at one end of a hallway flanked by portraits of Spain’s parliament speakers.
The Catalan separatists, who want to carve out a new state for northeast Spain around Barcelona, are expected to grill Esteban about CNI’s alleged use of the spyware.
They directly accused the CNI of being behind the hacks that came to light two weeks ago when the digital rights group Citizen Lab based in Canada published a report citing the use of Pegasus to hack into the phones of dozens of pro-independence supporters in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region, including politicians, lawyers and activists.
Spain’s government has repeatedly said that the CNI cannot tap phones without prior judicial authorisation. At the same time, the government said that the secrecy law shielding all CNI activities prevents the agency from confirming whether it possesses Pegasus, the spyware sold by Israeli company NSO Group.
“If Paz Esteban presents evidence that three or four years ago there was judicial authorisation to tap the phones of some 60 people because they supported (Catalonia’s) independence, then we are going to have a problem,” Gabriel Rufián, a member of parliament for a Catalan separatist party, told Cadena SER radio before attending the committee.
The Spanish government nevertheless has promised that both CNI and the nation’s ombudsman will investigate the report published by Citizen Lab. It has also encouraged those affected to take their cases to court.
