Spanish court halts probe into Israeli spyware hacking of Pedro Sánchez’s phone

Spain’s National Court announced Monday that the investigation into the phone hacking which targeted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been put on hold, due to Israel’s failure to provide information on the case.

Pegasus, a spyware product from the Israeli company NSO, was used to hack into Sanchez’s phone between 2020 and 2021. The phones belonging to Spain’s ministers of defense, interior and agriculture were also spied on. Around three gigabytes of information were allegedly stolen from Sánchez’s phone.

José Luis Calama, a judge at Spain’s National Court, said that “the very security of the state has been put in jeopardy,” during the spyware hacks, as reported by local media Monday.

The Spanish court asked Israel to provide information on the matter more than a year ago — but never received an answer.

“This silence clearly shows an absolute lack of legal cooperation on the part of the government of Israel. This leads us to presume that the judicial request in question, which has been sent four times, will never be executed,” Calama said.

Due to the lack of information, the court was not able to investigate who was behind the hacking.

Sánchez — who faces a tough election next weekend — was the first confirmed head of a European and NATO country to have been hacked with the spyware.