"The UK's High Court accepted in a ruling yesterday that the Saudi regime had infected human rights activist Ghanem Al-Masarir's mobile phone with Pegasus spyware supplied by Israeli tech company NSO Group. The court heard that the Kingdom had subjected Al-Masarir to a campaign of intimidation, surveillance and a physical attack in the UK, which had a catastrophic effect on his life and left him unable to work or perform day-to-day activities."
"An investigation by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto found that two of Al-Masarir's iPhones had been infected with Pegasus spyware in 2018, after he received text messages purporting to come from organisations including delivery company DHL and newspaper Arab News. Pegasus has the capability to extract personal data and files from infected devices and track their location."
"Two months after his phones were infected, Al-Masarir was followed by two men, one of whom was wearing an earpiece. One of them shouted at him, making references to the ruling Saudi royal family. The man then punched Al-Masarir in the face and attacked him until a passerby intervened. Al-Masarir subsequently received threats from Saudi-linked accounts on social media site Twitter, and on one occasion was approached by a child in a café who sang him a song praising the Saudi regime."
A UK judge ordered the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to pay £3 million in compensation to London-based dissident Ghanem Al-Masarir for intrusive surveillance after Pegasus spyware was installed on his phone. The High Court found that the spyware, supplied by NSO Group, infected two of his iPhones in 2018 via deceptive text messages. The surveillance formed part of a campaign including intimidation, threats, and a physical attack in the UK that severely disrupted his life and left him unable to work. Al-Masarir, granted asylum in 2018, produced widely viewed satirical human rights videos online.
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