MADRID – Spain’s top spymaster was grilled behind closed doors by lawmakers yesterday over mobile phone hacking revelations that have roiled the country’s fragile coalition government.
Paz Esteban, the first woman to head Spain’s CNI intelligence agency, appeared before a parliamentary committee for questioning over the affair which has dominated headlines for days.
The scandal broke last month when Canadian cybersecurity watchdog Citizen Lab said the phones of over 60 people linked to the Catalan separatist movement had been tapped using Pegasus spyware after a failed independence bid in 2017.
Catalan separatists immediately pointed the finger at CNI and threatened to withdraw their support for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority government unless heads roll.
Sanchez’s government depends on Catalan separatist party ERC to pass legislation and remain in power until the next general election due in late 2023.
The government said on Monday that the phones of Sanchez and Defence Minister Margarita Robles, whose ministry oversees the CNI, were hacked last year by the same spyware, made by Israel’s NSO group.
Sanchez is the first serving head of government confirmed to have been targeted by controversial Pegasus spyware.
The revelation raised questions over who is to blame and whether Spain has adequate security protocols.
Robles herself faced questioning on Wednesday during an open-door parliamentary commission meeting, and said the CNI always acted “within the law”.
Catalan separatists and hard-left party Podemos, Sanchez’s junior coalition partners, call for the defence minister to resign over the affair.
Pablo Echenique, a top Podemos member, said Robles “knows what she should do for her own dignity as well as for the dignity of the government”. – AFP, May 6, 2022
