Key step in Catalangate: three executives of the company that owns Pegasus are charged

BarcelonaThe Barcelona Court has ordered the investigation into the Pegasus case to be extended and three executives of NSO Group, the Israeli company that owns the spy software, and its subsidiaries in Luxembourg to be charged. This is the first time that executives of the company will have to answer to justice, according to the Irídia entity. It was precisely the human rights centre that He named the head of NSO Group by extending the complaint for espionage to one of the key lawyers in the judicialisation of the Process, Andreu Van den Eynde.

The court now considers that "it is absolutely appropriate to take testimony as suspects" from Shalev Hulio, Omri Lavie and Yuval Somekh, who held positions of responsibility in the company that owns Pegasus and two European subsidiaries (OSY Technologies and Q Cyber ​​​​Technologies) during the years of the events investigated (20). The Court considers that they should be investigated as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of discovery and disclosure of secrets, something that for Irídia represents "a key precedent for the fight against espionage in Spain".

Although the triple charge had been initially rejected by the 24th Court of Instruction in Barcelona, ​​​​and only the investigation into the Israeli manufacturing company and its distributors in Europe was maintained, the Court concludes that "it seems entirely logical to extend the charge to the charges to the charges." From there, Irídia urges the Luxembourg authorities to actively collaborate in the investigation and to promote a European Investigation Order (OEI) to clarify the reported facts.

The news in the case comes after the Barcelona Court also ordered a few weeks ago to investigate the former director of the CNI Paz Esteban for spying with Pegasus on former ERC MEP Jordi Solé. This charge is added to those already in the case of former president Pere Aragonès and ERC officials Josep Maria Jové and Diana Riba.