An Israeli lawyer said on Saturday January 29 that he was collaborating with a Hungarian NGO to sue the Israeli company NSO, creator of the Pegasus spyware, on behalf of Hungarian journalists who were allegedly illegally monitored.
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Pegasus was at the center of a scandal last year after an international media consortium published a list of around 50,000 potential surveillance targets around the world, including journalists, politicians, lawyers and dissidents. These media notably accused Hungary of using this spying technology against civil society.
“This is the first time that direct victims of Israeli defense exports have filed a request in Israel for the opening of a criminal investigation against a defense company and senior Israeli officials“, declared to AFP Me Eitay Mack. He told AFP that he had asked Israel’s attorney general to open an investigation into how NSO was authorized to sell its spyware in Budapest.
According to him, this request was made in coordination with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU), which claims that four journalists were targeted by Pegasus. Smartphones infected with Pegasus are transformed into spy devices, allowing users to read their target’s messages, view their photos, track their location or turn on their camera without their knowledge.
In a press release, HCLU claims to have lodged complaints with the Hungarian ministers who oversee the secret services, as well as with the European Commission. The organization also says it intends to launch “a multitude of lawsuitsbefore the European Court of Human Rights. “All legal means are used to enforce the rights of those who have been illegally spied on“, says the organization again.
In November 2021, a senior member of Hungary’s ruling party, Lajos Kosa, confirmed that his country had used Pegasus, while claiming that it had not been to illegally spy on Hungarian citizens. The Israeli firm NSO did not comment on the complaints filed in Hungary, but had previously told AFP that its software was only sold to instances “legitimateresponsible for applying the law whichuse these systems under warrants to fight criminals, terrorists and corruption“. Two months ago, the US government placed the Israeli group on its blacklist of companies threatening national security because of its spyware.