Spain’s Spy Chief Sacked Over Phone Hacking Scandal

Spain’s government has sacked the country’s spy chief as part of a widening scandal over the hacking of the mobile phones of the prime minister and Catalan separatist leaders.

The affair broke in April when Canadian cybersecurity watchdog Citizen Lab said the phones of over 60 people linked to the Catalan separatist movement had been tapped using Pegasus spyware after a failed independence bid in 2017.

Last week the government confirmed the phones of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Defence Minister Margarita Robles were also targeted, raising concerns about cybersecurity among Spain’s leadership.

Paz Esteban, the first woman to head Spain’s CNI intelligence agency, will be replaced, said Robles, whose ministry oversees the agency, confirming media reports.

Esteban appeared before a parliamentary committee for questioning on Thursday over the phone hacking scandal which has dominated headlines for days.

She confirmed that 18 Catalan separatists, including Pere Aragones, the head of Catalonia’s regional government, had been spied on by the CNI but always with court approval, according to participants at the closed-door meeting.

The affair has sparked a crisis between Sanchez’s minority government and Catalan separatist party ERC. Sanchez’s fragile coalition relies on the ERC to pass legislation in parliament.

The scandal deepened after the government announced on May 2 that the phones of Sanchez and Robles were hacked by the same spyware, made by Israel’s NSO group, in May and June 2021.