Pegasus, the scandal that the State wants to bury
The most serious political espionage in Spain's recent history is on track to go unpunished. The case Pegasus, which takes its name from the spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO Group used to infect the phones of dozens of pro-independence representatives, has gradually faded away over time, buried under the weight of institutional opacity and judicial apathy. What should have shaken the democratic foundations of the state has ended up becoming a bureaucratic nightmare, with no one responsible, no reparations, and, above all, no truth.
Unfortunately, it's no longer news, but a few weeks ago, the former director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Paz Esteban, was summoned to testify before a Barcelona court. When questioned about the spying on Catalan political leaders, lawyers, and institutional representatives, Esteban chose to remain silent: she invoked her right to remain silent, relying on the Official Secrets Act, a Francoist law passed in 1968 and still in force, which allows the State to avoid any liability. The result is that, despite the evidence, witnesses, and complaints, if nothing changes, everything points to the espionage going unpunished.
Catalangate, revealed in 2022 by the Canadian laboratory Citizen Lab, documented at least 65 infections with Pegasus software. against leaders, activists, and lawyers linked to the independence movement. Among the victims were the president of the Generalitat (Catalan government), Pere Aragonès, and also legal defenders in October 1st cases, which flagrantly violates the fundamental rights to privacy, defense, and political representation. The Spanish state, however, has yet to even acknowledge having acquired Pegasus, although NSO only sells it to governments.
Fortunately, the matter has not been buried thanks to the legal actions and investigations promoted by ERC, which has led the case from the outset, which prove that there is sufficient evidence to link the CNI to this espionage. The first complaint, filed following the infections on the cell phones of Roger Torrent and Ernest Maragall, opened the door to a broader investigation that, over time, has included Aragonés, Jordi Solé, Diana Riba, Josep Maria Jové, and Andreu Van den Eynde. Thanks to this work, an unprecedented milestone has been achieved: Paz Esteban has been charged four times and three NSO Group executives have also been indicted.
This judicial breakthrough, a first in Europe, has been achieved without any cooperation from the Spanish government, the Prosecutor's Office, the Ombudsman, or the higher courts. The Madrid government continues to refuse to declassify information that could prove the state's purchase and use of Pegasus, and the judiciary has been reluctant to enforce this transparency. The strategy is clear: buy time until the case drowns in its own judicial labyrinth.
Meanwhile, the official narrative has been dissolving amid technical excuses and political silence. What was once a major scandal has become a new chapter of abuses of power against a peaceful and democratic political movement: the Catalan independence movement. The same mechanisms of repression that were at work in 2017—the application of Article 155, judicial convictions, the persecution of elected officials—are now manifesting themselves again in the form of precision technological espionage.
The Pegasus case once again highlights the existence of a deep state, an opaque mechanism that operates beyond democratic mechanisms. Precisely for this reason, it must be denounced, and the open legal case should serve to assess the state of democracy and determine the balance between fundamental rights and democratic freedoms versus the authoritarianism of the state. This is not an isolated case or a coincidence: it is yet another example of a system that acts against anyone who questions its unity and power.
The ultimate goal of the victims and those driving the investigation is clear: to get Spain to explicitly acknowledge that it has purchased Pegasus. and that political and criminal responsibility be assumed. But for this to be possible, it will be necessary to modify—as the Irídia organization is pushing for—the Official Secrets Act, a text inherited from the dictatorship that turns transparency into an exception and impunity into the norm. If this wall of silence is not broken, the message will be devastating: that the State can spy on its citizens, violate fundamental rights, and then hide with impunity behind the pretext of national security. Only the persistence of the victims, their lawyers, and civil society will be able to prevent this. Democracy, when it is authentic, is not spied on but protected.
