Macron's phone on list of spying targets

The French president is among 50,000 politicians, journalists and human rights activists around the world said to have been identified as 'people of interest' by clients of Israeli firm NSO, developer of a surveillance system called Pegasus.

The Paris prosecutor's office is investigating suspected widespread use of Pegasus spyware and an official in the president's office said: 'If this is proven, it is clearly very serious.'

Investigator Laurent Richard said on French TV: 'We found these numbers but we obviously couldn't do a technical analysis of Emmanuel Macron's phone to determine if it had been infected with a spying device.'

Other leaders on the list that emerged include South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

President Imran Khan of Pakistan was also among potential targets found on a list of numbers leaked to Amnesty and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories.

Last night the NSO Group denied that it had ever maintained 'a list of potential, past or existing targets'.

French President Emmanuel Macron was among a list of 14 current or former heads of state who may have been targeted for hacking by clients of the notorious Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

'The unprecedented revelation… should send a chill down the spine of world leaders,' Amnesty's secretary general, Agnes Callamard, said in a statement.

Among potential targets found on a list of 50,000 phone numbers leaked to Amnesty and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories include Presidents Imran Khan of Pakistan, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Barham Salih of Iraq.

Three current prime ministers and the king of Morocco, Mohammed VI, are also on the list, The Washington Post reported.

The Post said none of the heads of state would offer their smartphones for forensic testing that might have detected whether they were infected by NSO's military-grade Pegasus spyware. Thirty-seven phones identified in the investigation were either breached or shows signs of attempted infection, it has reported.

The Post and 16 other members of a global media consortium were granted access to the leaked list. Another member, the French daily Le Monde, determined that 15 members of the French government may have been among potential targets with Macron in 2019.

Following first reports by consortium members on Sunday, the Paris prosecutor's office said it was investigating the suspected widespread use of NSO's military-grade Pegasus spyware to target journalists, human rights activists and politicians in multiple countries.

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