Pedro Sanchez Y Margaret Oaks they were spied on in 2021 with Pegasus. The Government announced this Monday that the phones of the Chief Executive and the Minister of Defense were infected with this software, according to two reports from the National Cryptologic Center. Specifically, Sánchez’s mobile was intervened in twice in May 2021 -they obtained more than 2.6 gigabytes of information- and that of the person in charge of Defense once in June of the same year. The Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolanos, has assured that they have put the matter in the hands of Justice and have presented a complaint before the National High Court.
“We are absolutely sure that it is an external attack and that it is an external infection because in Spain all interventions are produced by official body and with judicial authorization. In this case, neither of the two circumstances has occurred. That is why we have no doubts”, Bolaños has sentenced after asserting that it is not about “assumptions”, but about “reliable” and “verified” facts. In addition, throughout the press conference called urgently, he has described in several times these interventions of “illicit and external”.
Bolaños reveals that he has been discovered during a verification process that is still ongoing with other ministers
In both interventions, a “certain volume of data was extracted from both phones,” Bolaños pointed out. Specifically, in the first intrusion that Sánchez’s mobile phone suffered, they obtained 2.6 gigabytes of data and 130 megabytes in the second. In the case of Robles, the theft of information was minor, only 9 megabytes. However, in the Executive they do not know, for the moment, what information was stolen and, therefore, the sensitivity of it. Even so, Bolaños has pointed out that they are certain that the interventions have not been repeated since May and June 2021.
sources of espionage
The Minister of the Presidency explained that these facts had been discovered during a verification process of the telephone numbers of all members of the Government -which still continues- and what was it this past Sunday when they received the full reports confirming it. “These are proven and extremely serious facts that confirm that there have been intrusions in areas outside state institutions and outside the law,” he stressed.
Asked if the Government considers that it is an intervention carried out by other countries, given that they describe it as “external”, Bolaños has limited himself to pointing out that it is “outside state agencies and does not have judicial authorization”, but has not wanted to go further. However, the company that markets the Pegasus software ensures that it only sells it to the United States, which would mean that this intervention came from other countries. Nor has he wanted to venture the possible causes of this espionage to the President of the Government and the Defense Minister: “This is not the time or the place to make conjectures or interpretations.”
to the courts
“We want the justice to investigate to find out the whole truth and that is why we have made all the information we have available to them,” said Bolaños. Specifically, the Executive has sent the two reports from the National Cryptologic Center to the National audiencewhere they filed a complaint. “The information that has already been transmitted will be supplemented with all the information that is revealed by the ongoing investigation”, continued the Minister of the Presidency.
Bolaños has insisted on the “Unequivocal commitment of the Government for the clarification of the truth” and has pointed out that they want the courts to carry out an “independent investigation” to “know the whole truth.” “What we hope is that there is an investigation and Justice can clarify the facts. We want the justice, which is the competent body, to do so,” she stressed.
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The call takes place in full scandal by the ‘Catalangate‘, which has been about to cost the Executive the validation of the decree of measures against the crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Precisely last week, the Government defended the continuity of one of the people indicated by ‘Catalangate’, the Defense Minister, Margaret Oaks. Another person named is the director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Paz Esteban.