Morocco’s public prosecutor office to probe NSO spyware allegations

The Presidency of the Public Prosecution gives written instructions to the public prosecutor at the Rabat Court of Appeal for the opening of a judicial inquiry into allegations and accusations in articles published by foreign newspapers that Morocco’s security forces may have used spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group to eavesdrop on the cellphones of France’s president and other public figures.

RABAT - The Presidency of the Public Prosecution gave on Wednesday its instructions to the Public Prosecutor at the Rabat Court of Appeal to open a judicial investigation into the false allegations in articles published by foreign newspapers, containing accusations against the Moroccan public authorities and implicating national constitutional institutions in cases which undermine Morocco’s higher interests.

In a statement, the Presidency of the Public Prosecution said that after getting informed of certain media reports and articles published by foreign newspapers united under the banner of a coalition called "Forbidden Stories", which include serious accusations and allegations against the Moroccan public authorities and involve national constitutional institutions in cases undermining the higher interests of the Kingdom of Morocco; and following the press release issued by the Moroccan government in which it denounces these allegations and accusations; and given their systematic recurrence targeting national law enforcement institutions in a manner that includes material and moral constituent elements of alleged crimes, incriminated and punished by the Moroccan Criminal Code, it gave written instructions to the public prosecutor at the Rabat Court of Appeal for the opening of a judicial inquiry into these false allegations and accusations and the identification of the parties behind their publication.

On this basis, the public prosecutor at the Court of Appeal of Rabat gave instructions to the National Brigade of the Judicial Police to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter, in order to determine the circumstances and to shed light on the ins and outs of the publication of these accusations and allegations and establish the responsibilities as well as the legal consequences arising therefrom in the light of the results of the investigation, said the same source.

Morocco’s government is denying reports that the country's security forces may have used spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group to eavesdrop on the cellphones of France’s president and other public figures.

The government had lashed out in a statement late Tuesday at a global media consortium investigating the suspected widespread use of NSO’s Pegasus spyware to target journalists, human rights activists and politicians in multiple countries. 

NSO Group denied that it ever maintained “a list of potential, past or existing targets.” It called the Forbidden Stories report “full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories.”