Spanish judge to travel to Israel to question CEO of NSO Group

The Spanish High Court said Tuesday it has called the CEO of Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group, Shalev Hulio, to testify as part of an investigation into the Pegasus hacking scandal.

Judge Jose Luis Calama will personally travel to Israel to question Hulio, whose software was used to hack the telephones of high-level Spanish politicians.

Calama has already sent questions to the company, according to a High Court statement.

Pegasus spyware, which allows hackers to tap into virtually all the data on a mobile phone, has been successfully deployed against Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and other Spanish ministers.

Most of those hacks occurred during the peak of political tensions with Morocco, which was triggered by Spain secretly treating the rebel leader of Western Sahara for coronavirus last spring.

But 63 Catalan politicians were also targeted with Pegasus, according to a report by the research group Citizen Lab. The Spanish intelligence agency has admitted to legally hacking some of those phones but has not confirmed the use of Pegasus spyware.

As part of the investigation, the judge is also gathering testimony from Spanish Parliamentary Affairs Minister Felix Bolanos.

The statement also confirmed that the former head of Spain's national intelligence agency, who was recently fired amid the Pegasus scandal, has already been questioned by the court.

According to NSO Group, all of the company's products, including Pegasus spyware "are used exclusively by government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight crime and terror."