Police used NSO spyware 240 times under chiefs Alsheich and Cohen – report
Media identifies three local leaders allegedly spied on with court order; report says Iris Elovitch, defendant in Netanyahu trial, was also hacked
NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware program was used against 90 targets during Roni Alsheich’s three years in office, between 2015-2018, Channel 12 reported Wednesday evening, shortly after the former police commissioner strongly denied any police wrongdoing under his watch.
According to the unsourced report, spyware was used against another 150 targets while Motti Cohen served as acting police commissioner between 2018-2020.
Channel 12 did not say whether, according to its information, these 240 individuals were all hacked under court orders or not.
Police have insisted that any use of spyware to access phones was done under strict adherence to court orders, denying media reports of widespread abuse of their powers to spy on innocent citizens without court oversight.
After the newspaper Calcalist, in an unsourced report on Monday, named 26 people it said were illicitly spied on by police, an internal police probe, handed to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday, claimed only three of them had been targeted, only one successfully, and all with judicial oversight.
Channel 12 on Wednesday night said it had narrowed down who the three were: former Netanya mayor Miriam Feirberg, former Kiryat Ata mayor Yaakov Peretz and either Mevasseret Zion Mayor Yoram Shimon or Holon Mayor Motti Sasson; all were under police investigation.
A Channel 13 report identified another target as Iris Elovitch, wife of former Bezeq controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch. The two are defendants alongside former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his ongoing corruption trial.
Case 4000, the most severe of the three cases against the former prime minister, alleges that Netanyahu advanced regulatory decisions as communications minister and prime minister that immensely benefited Walla owner Elovitch, the controlling shareholder in Bezeq, the country’s largest telecommunications firm, despite opposition from the Communication Ministry’s career officials. In exchange, the Elovitches allegedly gave him what amounted to editorial control over their Walla news site.
According to the Channel 13 report, a judge approved the use of spyware in order to hack Iris Elovitch’s phone.
Last week, Channel 13 reported that police targeted Shaul Elovitch’s phone, and that of state witness Shlomo Filber, also with judicial approval.
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai and police officers involved in using the spyware have insisted that their actions were legal and supervised.
The internal investigation ordered by Shabtai has so far has found “no evidence of breaking the law.”
Publicly addressing the scandal for the first time on Wednesday, Alsheich denied any police wrongdoing under his watch, saying the allegations had “no connection to reality.”
NSO’s Pegasus has made headlines due to its alleged use by countries around the world, in many as an undemocratic means to spy on dissidents and quash opposition.
Regarding new developments about the use of Pegasus outside Israel, Channel 12 reported Wednesday evening that the spyware was sold to an unnamed foreign leader, who used it against his wife.
And in another instance, it said, a European leader has claimed to have been hacked by a North African state with the Pegasus spyware.
No further details were provided.
