Spanish PM’s Mobile Phone Infected By Pegasus Malware

The cellphones of Spain’s prime minister and defense minister were reportedly infected last year with Pegasus spyware, which is available only to countries’ government agencies.

Cabinet Minister Félix Bolaños said Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s mobile phone was breached twice in May 2021, and Defense Minister Margarita Robles’ device was targeted once the following month,.

The breaches, which resulted in a significant amount of data being obtained, were not authorized by a Spanish judge, which is a legal requirement for national covert operations, Bolaños said at a hastily convened news conference in Madrid.

The Socialist-led government was during those months under intense scrutiny over its handling of a major foreign policy spat with Morocco and gripped by a tense domestic dispute over the release of jailed separatists from Spain’s restive Catalonia region.

Bolaños refused to speculate who might have been behind the Pegasus breach, nor what might have prompted it.

The National Court opened an investigation into the breach, and a parliamentary committee on intelligence affairs was set to look into it.

In May 2021, more than 8,000 migrants forced their way into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco by scaling a border fence or swimming around it. Spain deployed troops and armored vehicles there to stop more migrants getting into its territory.

That crisis came as Rabat and Madrid were at odds over Spain agreeing to provide COVID-19 care to a prominent Sahrawi leader fighting for the independence of Western Sahara, a territory once under Spanish control that Morocco annexed in the 1970s.

Moroccan authorities denied they encouraged mass migration into Ceuta, which came as Spain struggled to cope with tens of thousands of migrants arriving from Africa.

Before Monday’s announcement, the government was already under pressure to explain why the cellphones of dozens of people connected to the separatist movement in the northeastern Catalonia region were infected with Pegasus between 2017 and 2020.