MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s High Court on Monday shelved an investigation into the use of Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group’s “Pegasus” software to spy on Spanish politicians, including Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and several ministers.
Judge Jose Luis Calama, whose court investigates crimes against government ministers, said the lack of cooperation from Israeli authorities made it impossible to keep the probe open, in a case that had “jeopardized the very security of the State”.
Last year the government said Pegasus software was used to spy on ministers, triggering a political crisis in Spain that led to the resignation of its spy chief.
Calama said he had sent a letter of request to Israel several times asking for NSO Group’s CEO to testify as a witness in the case, but there had been no response.
“This silence clearly shows a complete lack of legal cooperation on the part of the Israeli government. This leads us to presume that there will never be a response to the letter of request in question, which has been sent four times,” Calama wrote in a judicial document.
Only a diplomatic push by the Spanish government could help advance the case now, he concluded.
The probe will be archived until there is a response to the letter of request, which Calama says is unlikely, or new evidence emerges.
Sanchez’s phone was hacked five times between October 2020 and December 2021, while Defence Minister Margarita Robles’ phone was hacked four times, the judicial document said.
As much as 2.6 gigabytes of data were extracted from Sanchez’s phone between May 19 and May 21, 2021, according to the probe.
The phones of Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Agriculture Minister Luis Planas were also hacked.
The government did not elaborate on the circumstances of the spying on the ministers.
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Charlie Devereux and Jan Harvey)
