The former director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) Paz Esteban will have to appear for the second time as accused of spying on independence leaders with the Pegasus program. This has been agreed by the Barcelona Court, as elDiario.es has learned.
In an order, the magistrates of the 3rd section of the Barcelona Court assess that there is sufficient evidence in the investigation phase to “build a well-founded suspicion of criminal responsibility” of the former head of the Spanish spies in the infiltration of the telephone of the ERC leaders Diana Riba and Josep Maria Jové.
The investigation into espionage with Pegasus against several politicians, activists and lawyers for pro-independence supporters remains spread across half a dozen courts in Barcelona after the refusal to group all the complaints into a macro-case. Esteban, the only government official who left office due to the scandal after pressure from pro-independence groups, has appeared under investigation before the 29th investigative court of Barcelona only in relation to the espionage of former president Pere Aragonès. Now he will also do it for the one that affected the MEP and the deputy in the Republican Parliament, before the 20th investigative court in the Catalan capital.
The elements that have led the magistrates to correct the instructor’s refusal to have Esteban testify as under investigation are the technical coincidences of espionage alleged by both Aragonès, Jové and Riba, the three defended by lawyer Andreu Van den Eynde.
The analysis of the former president’s cell phone identified the malicious Internet domains through which Aragonès’ cell phone was infected. But in addition, the Mossos d’Esquadra found the same malicious dominance of Aragonès in the case of Jové. The technique to enter the mobile phone also coincided in both cases: it was sending SMS with apparently real news but that in reality directed to the spy server.
“There are sufficient elements to reasonably believe that the CNI may be the only client in Spain of the NSO business group, distributor of the Pegasus program, and therefore the probable author of the infection of the various affected mobile terminals,” the judges point out in their resolution. .
The decision to charge Esteban is especially relevant because it means breaking one of the red lines that the courts had placed on the investigation of espionage with Pegasus. Until now, both the Council of Ministers and Esteban had only given explanations in the case of Aragonès, which was one of the names that the former spy chief admitted to having spied on, always with the endorsement of the Supreme Court, during her appearance in the commission of reserved matters of Congress.
Since Jové and Riba were not part of the names that Esteban admitted to having spied on, the PSOE Government refused to declassify the documents required by the judge regarding their infiltration.
For the judges, however, the technical similarities between the espionage of Aragonès and Jové, together with the “belonging” of both to the same political environment, allow us to raise the possibility that the CNI was also behind their infiltration, although Esteban did not. recognized in Congress.
In short, for the Barcelona Court, Esteban’s statement as under investigation “stands as a logical and particularly guaranteeing option.” In addition, the judges also request that the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), which has guarded one of Jové’s cell phones pending amnesty, provide the terminal to the Mossos d’Esquadra for expert analysis.
Source: www.eldiario.es
