Esteban's dismissal yesterday came amid growing political tensions and almost two years after a joint investigation by the Guardian and El País first revealed that senior pro-independence Catalan politicians were warned their mobile phones had been targeted using the spyware.
The scandal has intensified over recent weeks after cybersecurity experts at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said at least 63 people connected with the Catalan independence movement had been targeted or infected with Pegasus spyware between 2017 and 2020.
It has also emerged that the mobile phones of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez; the defence minister, Margarita Robles; and the interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, were subjected to “illicit" and "external" targeting using Pegasus last year. The Spanish government has not commented on which foreign country may have been responsible.
This story is from the May 11, 2022 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the May 11, 2022 edition of The Guardian.
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