Paris: Morocco has submitted a claims of defamation against Amnesty International and French NGOs who claim their intelligence services using Pegasus mobile phones against dozens of French journalists, lawyers for Thursday.
The Paris prosecutor opened their own questions this week into a claim by Amnesty and the French Media non-profit forbidden stories, expressed by media outlets including Washington Post and French Daily Le Monde.
They are based on the leak list of 50,000 telephone numbers allegedly targeted by the Pegasus mobile supervision program from the Israeli NSO group.
“Moroccan country …
want all light to allow this false accusation from these two organizations, which make claims without any concrete evidence or demonstrative,” said lawyer, Olivier Baratelli, said in a statement.
The first trial was set for October 8 in Paris, although the trial might not be open for two more years.
Phone Moroccan King Mohammed VI and other Royals people are also in the list of numbers identified as potential Pegasus targets by Moroccan intelligence services, French radio reported Tuesday.
French President Emmanuel Macron called a national security meeting that was urgent Thursday to discuss reports on the use of Pegasus in France.
Evidence of hacking efforts was found on the telephone of the former Minister of Environment and closed Ally Macron Francois de Rugy, with the effort allegedly originating from Morocco.
Morocco has denied the claim, saying this week that “never acquired computer software to infiltrate communication devices”.
His government “did not intend to let some false lies and news spread the last few days was not punished”, said Westelli.