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Carine Kanimba: Your father is considered one of the most prominent critics of the Rwandan ruler Paul Kagame
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JOHN THYS / AFP
With the help of the »Pegasus« cyber weapon, numerous opponents of autocrats around the world are said to have been spied on.
As the »Süddeutsche Zeitung« and the British »Guardian« report, the daughter of the »Hotel Rwanda« hero Paul Rusesabagina, Carine Kanimba, is also affected.
Rusesabagina saved more than a thousand people from the genocide in Rwanda.
He is considered one of the most prominent critics of the Rwandan ruler Paul Kagame.
Meanwhile, Rusesabagina has to answer in court for terrorism allegations.
He has been in prison since August 2020.
Before that he lived in the USA and Belgium.
However, aides from President Kagame had brought him to Kigali in a spectacular operation.
He was finally arrested there.
His daughter Kanimba campaigns for his release.
Research by the “Pegasus Project” now shows that Kanimba’s smartphone was infected with spy software that makes it possible to overhear and read everything that is happening on this mobile phone - even the microphone can be switched on to eavesdrop.
Scouting attack parallel to the release campaign for Rusesabagina
As the »Süddeutsche Zeitung« reports, the spying attack is said to have taken place at the same time as Kanimba's campaign to release her father.
During this time she called parliamentarians, spoke to the US commissioner for hostage-taking and met the Belgian foreign minister.
The report also states that it is not clear who was responsible for the reconnaissance attack.
However, there have been indications in the past that the Rwandan authorities had the »Pegasus« cyber weapon.
An international research group is behind the »Pegasus Project«. As part of the project, the group has evaluated a data leak with more than 50,000 telephone numbers, which are said to have been selected as a target for possible surveillance by customers of the Israeli company NSO Group since 2016. How many of the connections were actually hacked or monitored was initially unclear. According to the report, the program developed by the company called "Pegasus" is considered by experts to be the most powerful surveillance program for cell phones and has been classified as a cyber weapon.
"Pegasus" is able to spy out infiltrated cell phones in real time and bypass the encryption of messenger services such as WhatsApp or Signal.
The NSO Group only sells the program to government agencies - and officially for the purpose of combating terrorism and serious crime.
Excessive use of spy software in Mexico
The weekly newspaper "Die Zeit", NDR and WDR, as well as the "Washington Post" and the French "Le Monde" were also involved in the research.
According to their revelations, the espionage software "Pegasus" is said to have been used excessively in Mexico as well.
In the vicinity of today's Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, there are therefore possible victims of attacks with the spyware.
The telephone numbers of López Obrador's wife, his children, his brother and even his cardiologist were entered in a list between 2016 and 2017 for monitoring by the "Pegasus" software.
At the time, López Obrador was opposition leader and political rival of then President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Several members of the current government and the Mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, have also been identified as potential surveillance targets.
According to the report, however, López Obrador himself does not appear on the list - he "obviously did not use his own mobile phone" but communicated via his employees.
Drug boss "El Chapo" is said to have been wiretapped
According to a report in the Guardian, Mexico was the first country in the world to acquire the Pegasus software.
Among other things, the software was bought by the Ministry of Defense, the Attorney General and the secret service.
Mexico served "as a kind of laboratory" for the company's spy technology.
According to the report, the license expired in 2017 and was not renewed.
To this day, NSO does not want to comment on business relationships with authorities in Mexico.
In earlier interviews, however, company boss Shalev Hulio made several hints that NSO's espionage software was said to have helped, among other things, to arrest the notorious drug lord Joaquín Guzmán alias »El Chapo«.
The list of telephone numbers includes at least 15,000 Mexican lines, including those of 25 journalists.
One of the victims was murdered in 2017 after exposing alleged links between politicians and criminals.
In addition to Rwanda and Mexico, the list also includes telephone numbers from countries such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Hungary, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
asc / dpa / AFP