Pegasus Scandal: Spanish Judicial Investigation Exposes Morocco’s Involvement

The results of the judicial request sent by the Spanish National Court last March to the French judicial authorities, concerning the Pegasus spyware scandal, revealed the involvement of the Moroccan regime in this scandal, marking a significant advance in the judicial investigations that began in 2022 by the courts in both France and Spain.

Based on a judicial request received by Judge José Luis Calama of the Spanish National Court, which specialises in terrorism and organised crime cases, from the French judiciary, the Moroccan regime is held responsible for the espionage scandal involving the theft of documents from the phones of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and Defence Minister Margarita Robles.

The Spanish newspaper El Debate, which stated it had reviewed the contents of the French judicial request, explained in an article published last Monday that “the comparison of the French and Spanish data has allowed us to identify two identical markers, leading to the assumption that the same people are behind both the Spanish and French espionage cases.”

The investigation into the Pegasus spyware scandal in Spain has stalled. Spanish authorities initially closed the case, then reopened it in April 2024 after receiving documents from French judicial authorities that further fueled suspicions of Moroccan involvement, based on a comprehensive European investigation into the matter.

Based on these leaks, the French judiciary became certain, as also reported by the Spanish newspaper La Razón, of the involvement of Moroccan intelligence services in spying on a number of European leaders, including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and three of his ministers. This came ten months after the Spanish National Court sent a letter of request to its French counterpart.

According to judicial investigations, many of the victims of this spyware, developed by the sionist company NSO and sold to Morocco, were all connected to the manufacturers. This appeared to be an attempt to obtain confidential information related to well-known lobbying groups.

In Spain, the Pegasus spyware erupted in 2022. It had begun stealing documents in May 2021, coinciding with the sending of emails to thousands of young clandestine migrants in the Spanish city of Ceuta. This occurred amidst the mass storming of the city’s fences and walls by thousands of these migrants, allegedly with the complicity of Moroccan security and gendarmerie forces. This incident put pressure on Pedro Sánchez’s government, forcing him, about a year later, to change Spain’s policy on the Western Sahara issue.

According to the newspaper El Debate, “the exchange of information between the judge of Spain’s National Court and the French judicial authorities also determines that it is not possible to identify the individuals involved in the espionage by name, but rather to establish its origin in general terms, and this points to Morocco”, which means that the exchange of judicial information between the Judge José Luis Calama and the French judciary failed to identify the individuals involved in the Pegasus spying scandal—who are reportedly members of the Moroccan intelligence service—but it did identify the source of this criminal targeting, which, according to the same source, points to the Moroccan regime.

It is known that the Pegasus spying scandal affected many European politicians, not only in Spain and France, but also in other countries such as Belgium, Italy, and even Algeria, according to what was revealed by the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists).