Madrid (EFE) in the face of the “absolute” lack of legal cooperation from Israel.
Some facts that have “put the security of the State in jeopardy”, according to the judge in his order, where he laments “the frustration of the investigation” due to the lack of collaboration from Israel, which has prevented the investigation of who the perpetrators were, ” leading us, inevitably” to the provisional archive.
Since May 2022, the judge has investigated for an alleged crime of discovery and disclosure of secrets the infection on five occasions of Pedro Sánchez’s mobile phone through the Pegasus program, and also those of the Defense Ministers, Margarita Robles; Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; and Agriculture, Luis Planas, between 2020 and 2021.
In order to find out who was behind the espionage, the judge sent a letter rogatory to Israel up to four times in which he requested information from the company that owns Pegasus, NSO GROUP, and the statement as a witness of its highest manager. To do this, throughout these months, he expanded the request for legal cooperation and sent up to two reminders, without success.
Israel’s lack of response leads the judge to assume that his court “can do little or nothing” to advance the investigation, and considers that “the only thing remaining is a possible diplomatic channel that is capable of promoting compliance with the obligations derived from international treaties, and whose exercise corresponds to the Government, in this case, also, victim of the crime under investigation”.
“Without a doubt, the State Attorney’s Office, person in these proceedings, as procedural representative of the General State Administration, will promote the exercise of said path through the mechanisms that the Government of Spain has for such purposes”, points out .
Five infections of Sánchez’s mobile
According to the evidence gathered throughout the investigation, the infection of the Prime Minister’s mobile phone occurred five times, between October 2020 and December 2021.
The first detected process, reports the car, took place between May 19 and 21, 2021 and the amount of “exfiltrated” information was at least 2.57 “gigabytes”. The second was detected on May 31 and was 130 “megabytes”.
The magistrate believes that Margarita Robles’ mobile phone was infected four times, between May and October 2021, while Grande Marlaska’s was infected twice, on June 2 and 7.
In the case of Luis Planas, Judge Calama explains that his mobile phone was infected on June 25, 2021, but the amount of “exfiltrated” information suggests an unsuccessful infection attempt thanks to a “vaccine” application. .
The National Cryptological Center, attached to the CNI, prepared a series of reports on the infection of the devices and concluded that it was “impossible to determine the authorship”.
“Absolute” lack of collaboration from Israel
Calama regrets in his order that, more than a year after requesting Israel’s legal collaboration, he has obtained a “silence” that “clearly shows” the “absolute lack of cooperation” from the “Government of Israel” and assumes that this rogatory letter “It will never be completed.”
And he understands that, according to the 1969 Vienna Convention, Israel should explain the reasons for the refusal to execute the letters rogatory.
Calama speaks of “investigative impotence”, which prevents us from knowing the reality of what happened, and which, in this case, means that “the process remains dormant” until the information obtained “through a punctual and unlikely compliance of the commission request that Israel has obstructed or new sources of evidence, allow the continuation of the procedure.