Netanyahu, now the opposition leader, has demanded an independent, external investigation of the Pegasus allegations. The Justice Ministry statement said an internal police investigation had found "that no action was taken against anyone in the absence of a court warrant against them." Some 1,500 phone numbers were checked, the statement added.Īn inquiry being conducted by a deputy attorney-general "is also checking information in the NSO company's internal database, which was made available," it said. The Calcalist report prompted the court to cancel a session so prosecutors could respond to defense queries on whether any evidence against him was from tainted wiretaps.
#WIRETAP PODCAST RSS TRIAL#
Netanyahu is on trial in three corruption cases. Israel's Calcalist newspaper, in an unsourced report last week, said police had used Pegasus without judges' warrants against public figures including a son and two confidants of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. NSO, which has denied wrongdoing amid months of spiraling reports in Israel and abroad of privacy violations by government clients using Pegasus, has said its "audit log" database provides accurate information on phones infected by the spyware. Gruevski's government denied responsibility for the wiretapping, blaming foreign spy agencies.A high-level Israeli inquiry into alleged warrantless wiretaps by police is examining a database provided by NSO Group, the manufacturer of the powerful hacking tool Pegasus, the Justice Ministry said on Sunday. The scandal ignited massive street protests, both for and against the government of then-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, and led to snap elections.įollowing the vote, Social Democratic leader Zaev took over as prime minister in May. The verdicts and sentences against Grujevski and the six other defendants are the first rulings to be made since then-opposition leader Zoran Zaev in 2015 released tapes that appeared to reveal the official wiretapping of some 20,000 people, including judges, police, politicians, foreign diplomats, and journalists.Ī special prosecutor's office was established later in 2015 to deal with the allegations and more than 90 people were charged. They are fighting extradition to Macedonia, claiming their lives would be in danger if they returned. The two are awaiting trial for entering the country on false Bulgarian passports, and for a Macedonian extradition request to be examined. Grujevski and another ex-official were arrested in neighboring Greece last month under an Interpol warrant. They have eight days to appeal the verdicts. Lawyers for the seven defendants denied that any criminal activity occurred. The court also handed down suspended sentences of between nine and 12 months for six other ex-agency officials. It alleged that Grujevski ordered the destruction of intelligence documents and was "responsible for hiding traces of who wiretapped Macedonian citizens and how." The prosecution had requested a five-year prison sentence for Grujevski, the former head of Macedonia's Department for Counterintelligence and Security. Goran Grujevski on November 8 was sentenced to 18 months in prison for destroying documents that would have exposed the wiretapping scandal that plunged Macedonia into a protracted political crisis in 2015. A Macedonian court has convicted a former intelligence chief in absentia of tampering with evidence of the illegal wiretapping of thousands of people under the Balkan country’s previous government.
0 kommentar(er)
