The director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Esperanza Casteleiro, confirmed this Monday in a Barcelona court that the Supreme Court authorized Spain's intelligence services to spy on former Catalan National Assembly (ANC) presidents Jordi Sánchez and Elisenda Paluzie. The Council of Ministers declassified some of the confidential documents related to this surveillance last week, allowing Casteleiro, who has headed the CNI since 2022, to explain to Barcelona's Court of Instruction Number 23 that Sánchez and Paluzie were spied on from 2019. Although Casteleiro alone, the Catalan police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), detected intrusions on Sánchez's mobile phone as early as 2015, when theoretically there was still no authorization to spy on him. The pro-independence leader was a Junts candidate for the Catalan Parliament in 2018 and for the Spanish Congress in 2019, and the party's general secretary between 2020 and 2022. Casteleiro has acted as he did a few months ago in the case of the spying on ERC deputies Josep Maria Jové and Diana Riba. That is, he has limited himself to corroborating only what the declassified portion of the Supreme Court's rulings allows us to know—that since 2019 the spying on Sánchez and Paluzie was judicially authorized—but without confirming the details or the methods of espionage. In an appearance before Congress in May 2022, the former director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Paz Esteban, had already admitted to having spied, with the Supreme Court's approval, on both Sánchez and Paluzie. Intrusions from four years prior

In May 2022, the ANC filed a lawsuit regarding the spying on its leaders, although it did not target any specific state official or agency. At that time, and based on a Citizen Lab report, it was established that those affected were Paluzie, with four attacks and one confirmed infection between 2019 and 2020; Sánchez, with 26 attacks between 2015 and 2017 and four confirmed infections; the national secretaries Sònia Urpí, with two SMS attacks in June 2020 and one confirmed infection, and Arià Bayé, with one SMS in 2020; and the grassroots member of the organization, Jordi Domingo, a victim via WhatsApp in 2019. Furthermore, a report by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) confirms that Sà was also targeted. The first attack occurred in September 2015, when he had just been elected president of the ANC but an independence referendum had not yet been agreed upon. Most of the attacks occurred between then and October 2017, when he was imprisoned along with the president of Òmnium, Jordi Cuixart. In fact, the police assert that Sánchez's mobile phone was the victim of a malicious Pegasus attack and suffered data extraction between September and October 13, 2017, right at the height of the October 1 referendum and before he entered prison. All of these infections would fall outside the period for which there would have been judicial authorization, which Casteleiro has admitted today.

]]>

The Center arrives on the Movistar+ platform. It is a thriller A spy thriller starring Vicente Alfaro, known as Michelin, played by actor Juan Diego Botto. The plot begins with a murder that uncovers a complex international operation linked to the Russians. Set in the present day, but with a Cold War feel, the plot involves a race against time to prevent an undercover agent from compromising state security. Furthermore, the protagonists find themselves caught in a conspiracy that also includes internal betrayals.

]]>

On November 29, 2003, eight members of the CNI were traveling in their vehicles from Baghdad to the bases in Diwaniya and Najaf. It was during the Iraq War. They had traveled approximately 30 kilometers when they were ambushed, killing all but one of the agents: José Manuel Sánchez Riera. Now, more than 20 years later, he has decided to tell his story in the book Three days in November (Editorial Espada).

]]>

On November 29, 2003, eight members of the CNI were traveling in their vehicles from Baghdad to the bases in Diwaniya and Najaf. It was during the Iraq War. They had traveled approximately 30 kilometers when they were ambushed, killing all but one of the agents: José Manuel Sánchez Riera. Now, more than 20 years later, he has decided to tell his story in the book Three days in November (Editorial Espada).

]]>

Spanish president Pedro Sánchez announced today in Parliament that he will promote a change in the law that regulates the judicial control of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), which dates back to 2002, to "ensure maximum respect for individual rights". Sánchez has made this announcement during his appearance in Parliament to give explanations over the Pegasus case, as requested by all other parties. Sánchez has used the opportunity both to criticise the PP and to defend his commitment to dialogue with Catalonia.

]]>

Far from punishing Margarita Robles's political leadership of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), the Spanish government is reinforcing the Defence Minister's influence over the intelligence services. A person of her utmost confidence, Esperanza Casteleiro, until now Secretary of State for Defence (her number 2) will be the new director of the CNI, in "substitution" of Paz Esteban, as Robles wanted to call it this Tuesday at a press conference. The minister spoke of a "new stage", a "new boost" and a "modernisation" to be led by a veteran intelligence officer. Casteleiro, 65, born in Madrid and with origins in Ferrol, "knows everything about the CNI".

]]>

Only ten MPs will be able to listen to explanations offered by Spanish National Intelligence Centre (CNI) director Paz Esteban (Madrid, 1958) on the Catalangate. The law forbids them to make what they hear public. Not much is known about the head of the Spanish secret services – probably a good thing in a spy – whose continuity is in question as a result of the Pegasus case. Even the Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, chose not to answer journalists questions this morning on whether Esteban should resign.

]]>

From the beginning, the independence movement has seen Catalangate as a State operation against the movement. Yet Catalan president Pere Aragonès has gone a step further this Wednesday and has pointed the finger at Spanish intelligence services CNI as responsible for the mass electronic surveillance of around sixty politicians and activists. The head of the Catalan Government defended in an interview on RAC1 that there is "clear evidence" that for this, arguing that the Israeli spyware used is only available to states and has a very high cost. "What other intelligence service would want to allocate millions of euros to spy on people which it has no relations with?", he wondered, adding that "you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes" to suspect the CNI.

]]>