InvestigationA number of the current President of the European Council has been selected by the Moroccan services for possible surveillance in 2019, when he was Prime Minister of his country.
A phone number belonging to Charles Michel, when he was Prime Minister of Belgium, was seized in 2019 by the Moroccan client of the company NSO Group. Like the former foreign minister and MEP Louis Michel, his father, also targeted according to the conclusions of the investigation carried out by The evening, Knack, Forbidden Stories, The world, Radio France and twelve other media, united in the “Pegasus Project”.
The former Belgian prime minister, who took over the presidency of the European Council in December 2019, was selected as a possible target in March of the same year by Moroccan spyware user Pegasus. At the same time as the French head of state Emmanuel Macron, according to the collaborative investigation conducted by the “Project Pegasus” on the use of this cookie marketed by the Israeli company NSO Group. “We were aware of the threats, and measures were taken to limit the risks”, reacted briefly Charles Michel, contacted by The evening.
As the device used by the Belgian politician in March 2019 could not be analyzed by Amnesty International’s Security Lab, it is not possible to say whether he was indeed infected with Pegasus. Indeed, the list of 50,000 numbers (selected by Pegasus customers) that the consortium was able to analyze compiles preselected telephone numbers, with a view to a possible infection attempt. To go further and check if a hacking attempt has taken place and succeeded, a technical analysis of the device is necessary.
Father and son
Louis Michel’s phone was selected for potential targeting, while he chaired the Joint Parliamentary Assembly where representatives of the European Union and the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific region sit. Mr. Michel’s role, in addition to examining development issues, is also and above all to promote democratic processes.
Learning the interest of which he was the object on the part of one of the customers of NSO – probably Morocco -, Louis Michel said to himself “Astonished” and ” trouble “, reacting in an interview with The evening and Knack. “I would never have imagined that new technologies could be so intrusive and extremely dangerous for the functioning of democracy. “ “I am very happy to have been informed of this attempt to intrude into my political work, which consisted and still consists of promoting and helping in the resolution of conflicts”, he added.
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