According to the British newspaper The Guardian, “diplomatic sources said that the Saudi regime spied on the phone of Tunisian human rights defender Kamal Jendoubi, who served as head of the team of eminent experts in the war on Yemen, and according to a new forensic analysis, it was found that this was done via complex spyware developed by an Israeli group with Saudi funding.
According to the analysis of experts from Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, Jendoubi’s phone was targeted and hacked in August 2019, a few weeks before the team of experts submitted the report to the United Nations, which concluded that the Saudi-led military coalition
in Yemen has committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, which in turn may warrant criminal responsibility for possible war crimes.
As stated in the press investigation that the newspaper shared with other media and a French non-profit organisation called “Forbidden Stories”, Jendoubi’s phone number appeared in the database of the Israeli Pegasus program.
The data indicates that Jendoubi was chosen as a possible target for surveillance from Saudi Arabia, which the investigation accused of being a long-time client of the Israeli company “ONS” that developed the spyware.
Saudi Arabia also denied, through an official source who spoke to the official Saudi News Agency (SPA), its use of a program to spy, last July, describing the accusation as “a baseless allegation.”
The report also included in the list are two numbers of two women who are relatives of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in his country’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Commenting on that Jendoub stated that the hacking of his phone is an actions of a “rogue state,” adding that he can’t find the words to describe the matter, and as international investigators, we were supposed to have immunity and protection, however, I am not at all surprised by what happened, as I previously expressed my concerns about this are in 2019.”
He continued, “It came to our knowledge that we might be targeted after the publication of our report in 2018, as that report caused a shock in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for not expecting such results.”
The former investigator stated that the hacked phone was not used by him to conduct his investigations, explaining that what happened indicates that the state behind this matter does not care about “legal obligations and minimum international rules.”
Amnesty International’s Secretary-General, Agnes Calmard, who previously served as a United Nations special rapporteur, also described the news of Jendoubi’s penetration as “shocking and unacceptable”.
She added that “He was targeted during the investigation of violations committed by all parties to the armed conflict and by a major party to that conflict! This behavior is much more than a cynical cynicism and a callous disregard for the principle of accountability, although he certainly does, as more evidence indicates the Saudi authorities’ complete disregard for international law, their willingness to do anything to maintain impunity, and showing a complete lack of respect for the United Nations, multilateral instruments, and human rights procedures.”
