Not just heads of state, activists, journalists and politicians. Even princesses. The phone numbers of the daughter and wife of the Sheikh of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, were found on the lists of those spied by the spyware Pegasus, the product of the Israeli company Nso Group, now accused of being used by authoritarian governments to monitor dissidents and inconvenient people.
Potentially spied would have been the princess Latifa, the daughter of one of the richest men in the world, and the sixth wife of the emir, Haya Bint Al Hussain. They share the escape from the palace. But while Latifa was recaptured three years ago off the west coast of India, Al Hussain went missing along with Al Maktoum’s two sons. She would be in Great Britain, in a protected location to escape her husband.
Last February Latifa sent a video to the Bbc, containing a dramatic appeal: she asked for help, claimed to have been kidnapped by her father and complained of being held as a hostage because she was contested for behavior not in line with family and religious tradition.
Whether or not Pegasus contributed to Latifa’s tracking in 2018 is not sure. The presence of a number in the list does not automatically indicate that the phone has been infected or even just hit by an attempted hack; according to Guardian, the list – the content of which will be revealed gradually – is nevertheless significant because it indicates “the potential targets of the NSO’s government customers”. But the details of the princess’s and her friends’ phone list presence surprisingly coincide with her escape and capture.
It all happened in 4 days, writes the Guardian, which together with the Washington Post and other newspapers, they created the Pegasus Project consortium to coordinate their investigations. On February 28, the princess was “safe” aboard Nostromo, a 30-meter yacht, fleeing from her father and Dubai, in the waters of the Indian Ocean. Disposable mobile phones, the on-board traceability system deactivated. Nobody followed them.
That day Pegasus recorded the number of Latifa’s friends: the same ones he was messaging with from the yacht. And again, March 1 and 2: always the same cell phone, that of her friend Sioned Taylor.
It was the FBI who betrayed Latifa, the rebellious princess fleeing the Emirates
by Anna Lombardi
On 1 March a boat follows Nostromo. Soon after, a reconnaissance plane also appears. On March 4, after 10pm, 30 miles from the Indian coast, an Indian special forces commando attacked the yacht and brought Latifa home together with her Finnish friend Tiina.
Dubai denies. Nso denies. But, two Pegasus Project sources, anonymously, reported that the NSO terminated its contract with Dubai last year because the UAE country had used the Israeli firm’s technology to monitor Sheikh Al Maktoum’s family members.
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