The National Intelligence Center (CNI) has said that it found there as a network of Moroccan secret agents deployed in La Rioja in May 2021, at the time when the mobile phones of Pedro Sánchez and Margarita Robles were the object of espionage with Pegasus spyware.
At that time, Spain had welcomed Brahim Ghali, president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), to a hospital in Logroño.
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, Cabinet Minister Félix Bolaños said.
The breaches, which resulted in a significant amount of data being obtained, were not authorised by the Spanish courts, which is a legal requirement for national covert operations, Bolaños said at a hastily convened news conference in Madrid.
“We have no doubt that this is an unauthorized intervention,” Bolaños said. “It comes from outside state organisms and it didn’t have judicial authorisation.”
The initiative to welcome Ghali to Spain, where he is said to have received medical attention, was interpreted by Morocco as a frontal attack. This caused Mohamed VI to remove his ambassador from the country causing a break in diplomatic relations. In fact, the crisis ended with the dismissal of Arancha González Laya, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, who argued that Ghali’s reception was a “humanitarian task”.
Although Bolaños refused to speculate who might have been behind the Pegasus breach, nor what might have prompted it. The National Court has now opened an investigation into the breach, and a parliamentary committee on intelligence affairs has been set to look into it.
