The Government of Peña Nieto filed an inquiry for Pegasus

The government of former President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) made sure to alleviate the impunity of its officials involved in the hiring and operation of Pegasus. In mid-2017, after the spy scandal orchestrated by the Government against activists and journalists broke out, the internal control body (OIC) of the then Attorney General's Office (PGR) received a complaint in this case and opened an inquiry to investigate whether there was any administrative responsibility on the part of the public servants of the PGR who intervened in the hiring of the Pegasus spy program.

The file was left to the OIC, the investigative body that at that time still depended on the Ministry of Public Administration (SFP).

The investigation did not last long.

On March 21, 2018, eight months before the Peña Nieto government ended, the complaints area of ​​the OIC issued an agreement by which the case was closed as there were no major elements to continue with the investigation, it is clear from a Official letter delivered to EL PAÍS through the transparency law.

Currently, the former attorney Jesús Murillo Karam and Tomás Zerón de Lucio, two of the key officials in the hiring, are under investigation by the Public Function.

More information

• The new revelations of the 'Pegasus case' reveal the inaction of the Mexican Prosecutor's Office

• López Obrador and his family were the target of the Peña Nieto government's telephone espionage apparatus

This week a journalistic investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, in collaboration with a consortium of international and national media, revealed that at least 15,000 people in Mexico were spied on with Pegasus, a software created by the Israeli company NSO Group that infiltrates phones having access to all your files and applications.

Among the victims are journalists, human rights defenders, diplomats, politicians from all parties, and parents of the disappeared students from Ayotzinapa.

All of them would have been under surveillance by means of the intervention of their telephones between 2016 and 2017.

This new revelation points to a much greater number of targets than was known after the first revelations made in June 2017. At that time, a group of journalists and human rights defenders publicly denounced that their phones had been infected with the virus. sophisticated software unleashing after the revelation one of the biggest scandals faced by former president Enrique Peña Nieto.

Former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto during a press conference on April 12, 2016 in Berlin, Germany.

NurPhoto / NurPhoto via Getty Images

The Executive had to open a criminal investigation in 2017 that until the end of his Administration never presented progress. It is now known that along with this criminal investigation, another file for possible administrative offenses had also been initiated, which was archived. In the information delivered to this medium, it is read that not enough elements were found to demonstrate the responsibility of those involved, therefore the file 2017 / PGR / DE1353 was archived.

After the change of government and the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the presidency, the OIC of the Attorney General's Office opened a new investigation in administrative matters for the Pegasus case, but this has not progressed either and is still "pending." A source from the Public Prosecutor's Office explained that it only focuses on contracting procedures and on verifying whether there was negligence in the acquisitions. This procedure is independent of the investigation that has been followed by criminal means since 2017 and that is in process at the Special Prosecutor's Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE), the instance of the FGR in charge of the case. Although the FGR has refused to provide details of the progress, the file is in the "investigation and integration stage" and no arrest warrant has been issued.clarified in response to a request for information.

The contracts that the Mexican Government entered into with NSO Group to acquire Pegasus were signed in 2014 through the then Attorney General's Office (PGR) when Jesús Murillo Karam was in charge. The contract, dated October 29, 2014, was signed by the then head of the Criminal Investigation Agency (ACI), Tomás Zerón, as announced by Televisa and

Milenio

in June 2017. The

software

vendor

had been a company Mexican company called Tech Bull, which specializes in trading programs of this type with the Mexican government and served as an intermediary for the Israeli consortium.

Both characters, Murillo and Zerón, are now subject to an investigation by the Ministry of Public Administration, as reported by the SFP via transparency to EL PAÍS. Although the agency refused to specify whether these files are related to the Pegasus case, it clarified that both complaints were filed on July 13, 2020. The reason: "Probable violations of laws, regulations and administrative provisions and is currently in the stage of investigation". Currently the files are under investigation, a stage where the authority carries out a series of investigations in order to prove any conduct that could constitute administrative responsibilities. “Until the investigation proceedings are concluded, the facts will be analyzed,as well as the information collected in order to determine the existence or non-existence of acts or omissions that the law designates as administrative misconduct ”, he specified in an official letter.

In criminal matters, both officials are also in the sights of the authorities. Tomás Zerón has been summoned to testify in the FEADLE investigation to provide information on the operation of Pegasus. The Prosecutor's Office has told the judge, where the former official has filed a series of appeals, that his presence is as a "witness", not as a "defendant." Zerón is currently a fugitive from justice in Israel after the authorities issued an arrest warrant for him in the Ayotzinapa case.

The Prosecutor's Office has never publicly said if, as part of the investigations into the purchase of Pegasus, former attorney Murillo Karam is being investigated.

In response to a request made by this means and after the National Transparency Institute (INAI) ordered it to open the information, the FGR now in charge of Alejandro Gertz Manero reported that the former attorney was subject to an investigation by the Internal Affairs Prosecutor's Office, the one responsible for investigating the public servants or former public servants of the FGR.

This instance briefly said that it located a preliminary investigation initiated against Murillo Karam, but did not clarify whether he was linked to Pegasus.

The file concluded with a ruling of non-exercise of criminal action, that is, a ruling of exoneration that frees him from any criminal charge.

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