MADRID (Reuters) – The Spanish government sacked the country’s spy chief Paz Esteban following the disclosure of the use of Pegasus software to spy on Spanish officials, El Pais newspaper said on Tuesday, citing unidentified government sources.
Last month, Canada’s digital rights group Citizen Lab said more than 60 people linked to the Catalan separatist movement had been targets of “Pegasus” spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group.
This prompted Catalonia’s leftist pro-independence party ERC, a key ally of the Spanish minority government, to say it would not support it until Madrid took measures to restore confidence.
The Spanish government reported days after it had detected “Pegasus” spyware in the mobile phones of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Defence Minister Margarita Robles
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; editing by Emma Pinedo)
