Overview
- The High Court shelved the case into alleged Pegasus targeting of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and cabinet members due to the absence of an identifiable suspect.
- Case files say Sánchez’s phone was infected five times from October 2020 to December 2021 with up to 2.57 gigabytes extracted, and ministers Margarita Robles, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and Luis Planas were also hit.
- Spanish authorities sent cooperation requests starting in May 2022, including a bid to question NSO’s CEO in Israel, but received no acknowledgment.
- Judge José Luis Calama previously closed the probe in July 2023 and reopened it in April 2024 after input from France, which ultimately did not advance attribution.
- NSO denies wrongdoing and says it only licenses Pegasus to governments, Israel describes its role as limited to export approvals, and the judge noted the spyware leaves scant forensic traces that constrain technical proof.