Aristegui: It is neither affirmed nor denied that Pegasus is used 3:32
(CNN Spanish) -
A man who allegedly illegally intervened the communications of the journalist and CNN presenter Carmen Aristegui was arrested and sent to preventive detention, the Attorney General's Office of the Republic of Mexico (FGR) reported on Monday.
The detainee, identified only as Juan Carlos "G", has been accused of "aggravated illegal intervention of communications to the detriment of a journalist, using the software known publicly as Pegasus," the FGR statement states.
The agency added that the crime was committed "with the purpose of affecting, limiting and undermining their freedom of expression."
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CNN is trying to find out if the detainee has legal representation or how to testify to the prosecution.
Although the Prosecutor's Office did not identify the victim as Carmen Aristegui, the journalist said on her radio program on Tuesday that the case was related to a complaint she filed with other colleagues in 2017 against the then government for alleged illegal surveillance through software Pegasus, created by the Israeli firm NSO Group.
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The government of President Enrique Peña Nieto denied the accusations at the time.
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'A very important first step'
This Wednesday, the journalist told CNN that she would not comment on the suggestion of her lawyers and because it is an open process.
However, Article 19, a non-governmental organization that defends freedom of expression and supports the journalist in the case, said in a statement that they hope that "this link to the process is the first step to unravel the network that involves the illegal use and abusive from power against citizens of a tool that like few others destroys the most elementary limits of privacy, intimacy and fundamental rights of citizens ".
"We trust that it is the beginning of a process that allows the clarification of other cases that could be added by thousands," the text indicates.
In its statement, the FGR did not give details about who the detainee is or where he worked, although he was arrested in Querétaro and later transferred to Mexico City.
The special prosecutor for Attention to Crimes committed against Freedom of Expression (Feadle), Ricardo Sánchez Pérez del Pozo, said in a radio interview with Aristegui on Tuesday that the accused "was an operator of this system within a private company in charge of marketing this Mexico software ".
Sánchez added: "It is a very important first step in an investigation that is ongoing and that continues to advance in order to determine more responsibilities."
Research on the use of Pegasus in Mexico
In June 2017, an investigation by
The New York Times
suggested that Pegasus was used by the Mexican government or a corrupt group within the federal government to spy on activists, journalists, and human rights defenders.
In June this year, an investigation by a consortium of media organizations, including
The Washington Post
, revealed that 37 smartphones of journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women related to the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi they were targeted by "military grade spyware" Pegasus.
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The newspaper reported that the phones were "on a list of more than 50,000 numbers that are concentrated in countries known to monitor their citizens" and are known to be clients of the NSO Group.
Following the publication of
The Washington Post
, the company denied the investigation's findings.
It indicated then that it sells its "technologies only to police and intelligence agencies of governments examined with the sole purpose of saving lives by preventing crime and terrorist acts."
On Wednesday, an NSO Group spokesperson told CNN by email: "We are sorry to see, over and over again, how the company name is mentioned in news that has nothing to do with NSO, directly or indirectly."
