The director of the CNI, Esperanza Castellero, admitted before the judge that the former presidents of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Jordi Sánchez and Elisenda Paluzzi They were spied on with Pegasus between 2019 and 2020 with the approval of the Supreme CourtAlthough attacks detected in previous years have not been clarified. Castellero relieved Paz Esteban in May 2022 after his resignation due to the widespread spying scandal against the independence movement.
According to legal sources, the Director of National Intelligence He announced Monday via video Before the President of the Investigative Court No. 23 of Barcelona, which is investigating the espionage case of Sanchez, the former leader of the Junts convicted before OperationsHis successor in the ANC, Elisenda Palozi. As part of the investigation, an expert report from Mossos de Escodra revealed this Sanchez’s cell phone was attacked up to 19 times by Pegasus, between 2015 and 2020. On some occasions it coincided with the prison leave he enjoyed while co-creating Junts.
The judge agreed to summon Castillero, who served as Secretary of State for Defense between 2020 and 2022, to testify as a witness. To this end, he requested the Council of Ministers It allowed the disclosure of confidential information about the factsprotected under the Secrets Act, will declassify information about spying on ANC leaders.
In November, the Council of Ministers sent two orders to the investigating judge The Supreme Court judge responsible for CIA surveillance authorizes secret services to intercept communications Sanchez and Paluzzi, at various times between 2019 and 2020, authorized Castillero to testify before a judge regarding this case. The sources added that the files, as happened in the case of the decisions sent to the investigating judge into the spying of former President Perry Aragones, contain deleted parts, because they contain sensitive information.
During her testimony, the witness referred to Supreme Court decisions that supported espionage and ignored any question related to the use or operation of Pegasus, a program programming Which the Israeli company NSO sells in principle only to countries. In this sense it was said These issues are outside the scope of declassified information Which the government allows him to talk about.
This prevented the clarification of an important question raised by the Special Prosecution regarding The use of Pegasus on Jordi Sanchez’s cell phone between 2015 and 2017, The witness did not respond, claiming that this affected confidential information. According to African National Congress sources, the judge asked the Council of Ministers whether they were aware of spying on the entity’s former presidents between 2015 and 2022, the period in which Mossos detected infections.
The Catalan police report states that most of Sanchez’s mobile phone intrusions occurred between September 2015 and October 13, 2017.Two days before he entered pretrial detention Operations. That is, at the stage when he chaired the ANC, and therefore before he was subject to judicial investigation by 1-O.
Castillero has already given testimony as a witness before a Barcelona judge investigating the spying of ERC MP Josep Maria Jovi and MEP Diana Ripa. next to, It is scheduled for December 18 To provide explanations about the Pegasus attacks to former Republican MEP Jordi Soli and Andrew van den Eynde, Oriol Junqueras’s lawyer.
For attacks with Pegasus, The former director of the CNI, Paz Esteban, is being investigated in five different cases. Following complaints submitted by those affected by the widespread spying case against the independence movement.