The president of the Pegasus committee sees “many reasons” to investigate Rabat for spying on Sánchez

The president of the Pegasus committee of the European Parliament, the Dutch conservative jeroen lenaershas said this Tuesday that there is “many reasons” to investigate the role of Morocco in the computer espionage of Pedro Sánchez and his Ministers of the Interior and Defense.

Although he admits that he does not have “hard evidence”, Lenaers has stressed that there are “lots of information” that suggest that Rabat was behind the hacking of the Prime Minister’s cell phone, Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Daisy Roblesas stated in the report approved this Monday by the European Parliament.

“On Morocco, in our report, which is why it is so complete and elaborate, we have collected all the information that we have received and gathered during 14 months of research. And many reports suggest that Morocco has played a role (in spying on Sánchez)”, Lenaers explained at a press conference to present the results of his investigations.

[El PE pide al Gobierno de Sánchez recurrir a Europol para aclarar el espionaje con Pegasus]

“Do we have a smoking gun? Do we have strong evidence of what Morocco did and how? Maybe notbut there is a lot of information that is valuable to share and there are many reasons to carefully examine the role of Morocco in this whole matter,” said the president of the Pegasus committee.

For her part, the rapporteur for the report on espionage, the Dutch liberal Sophie In’t Veld, attributes to “diplomatic considerations” who does not want to delve into Rabat’s role in this scandal. “Both in France and Spain, which may have been targeted by the Moroccan authorities, a judicial investigation was launched, about which very little has been heard since. And one has the impression that diplomatic considerations play a role.” paper here”, has denounced.

The Eurochamber report states that the mobile phones of Pedro Sánchez, Margarita Robles and Fernando Grande-Marlaska were infected by Pegasus between May and June 2021. The Minister of Agriculture and former ambassador to Morocco, Luis Planas, was also the subject of an attack but was not infected. The European Parliament also speaks of possible espionage on the former Foreign Minister, Arancha Gonzalez Laya.

“It has been reported that the Moroccan government could potentially be responsible for this attackalthough this information has not been confirmed”, says the report of the European Parliament. The MEPs complain that “there is little information available so far about the details of this hack”, which was announced by the Spanish Government itself and that ” They are still subject to an ongoing investigation.”

For all these reasons, the European Parliament asks the Sánchez government to turn to the European Police Office (Europol) to clear “all” the espionage cases with the Pegasus computer program, both those that affect the president himself and his ministers and those that concern more than fifty Catalan pro-independence leaders. Spain must “invite Europol to join the investigations, to which you could contribute your technical knowledge”.

The report on Pegasus claims Spain a “full, fair and effective” investigation on computer espionage, the results of which must be made public “as widely as possible” within the limits of the law.

The recommendations of the European Parliament, which still have to be ratified in the June plenary session, They are not mandatory for Spainbut have only a political value.