The ERC deputy in Parliament, Josep Maria Jove, He has declared before the judge that they spied on him with the Pegasus program when, among other issues, he was negotiating the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and when the trial against the pro-independence leaders for the ‘procés’ was taking place, according to legal sources. Jové and the Republican MEP Diana Riba have appeared in the Investigating Court number 20 of Barcelona as victims of the intervention of their mobile phones. The togada is awaiting the response of the Spanish Executive on the declassification of the secret official documents related to the use of the ‘software’.
The judge has reactivated the investigation into the espionage of Riba and Jové after in mid-March the Barcelona Court partially upheld an appeal from the two ERC deputies and ordered them to carry out some of the procedures that both requested in their complaint, among them the appearance as a witness of the president of the CNational Intelligence Center (CNI), Hope Casteleiro. This is one of the cases that are distributed by different judicial bodies about the use of Pegasus to control independence leaders and their lawyers. In total, more than 65 cases have been detected, including those of the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonés, and his predecessor, Quin Torra.
Jové and Riba, represented by the lawyer Andreu Van den Einde, They explained to the judge how they found out about the espionage and what they were doing on the days when their phones were tapped with Pegasus. In the case of the ERC deputy, of the two phones that data was stolen, at least on March 20, 2019 and June 2020, although it is not ruled out that it happened on other occasions. The witness has assured before the togada that in that period the trial against the independence leaders for the ‘procés’ was underway, in which he was summoned to testify, and he was negotiating with the Spanish Government the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, but he was also trying to other issues of political significance, with the State of Alarm decree, different coalitions in Catalonia and budgets.
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The MEP Diana Riba has explained to the investigating judge the information that she has compiled as vice-president of the Pegasus committee of the European Parliament, both in the operation of the software of the Israeli company NSO and the possibility that the CNI could be behind the espionage. The European parliamentarian has reported that she found out that her phone was tapped on October 28, 2019 when, after a conversation with one of her advisers, she received a call and when she picked up she heard the dialogue she had had minutes before with Riba. She believes that they spied on her because of the withdrawal of Oriol Junqueras’s seat in the Eurochamber and because of the sentence of her husband, Raul Romeva. The witness has also specified the data that, as vice-president of the Pegasus commission, she has obtained from this computer program, from the Israeli company that sells it and its sale to the CNI.
“The important thing is that the investigation be accelerated because for now the tip of the iceberg has emerged,” Riba said, after his statement, to the media, while insisting that justice should investigate the 65 cases of people who they have been spied on through Pegasus. “We want to know why they have spied on us,” she assured. “It is the beginning of the effective investigation,” explained her lawyer, Andreu Van den Eynde, who is waiting for the reaction of the Spanish Government with the declassification of secret documents requested by the judge. “Each step that is taken in the investigation is an effort,” stressed the lawyer. The prosecutor insists that an expert opinion must be made on the telephones of Jové and Riba.