Amnesty International on 1 October 2026 published a report identifying Morocco’s domestic intelligence service as a user of the spyware Pegasus and linking its infrastructure to attacks in Spain The investigation, entitled “We start with the verdict”, identifies the Direction Générale de la Surveillance du Territoire (DGST) as a Pegasus customer and documents its use between 2017 and 2021. For Spain, Amnesty cites technical indicators said to show attacks on official phones belonging to the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior. The smartphone of the head of government Pedro Sánchez was compromised in May and June 2021; however, the report does not name a specific iMessage account in this case.
Amnesty bases its attribution on forensic analysis, internal NSO Group documents, court records and witness statements. According to the report, servers and address ranges used by the DGST were repeatedly identified in attacks on human rights defenders, journalists and women politicians in several countries, including France and Spain. For Spain, the report gives no named list of victims; instead, it refers to attacks on the communications devices of the Minister of Defence and the Minister of the Interior during the period in question.
The findings come at a politically sensitive time: in 2021, migration and border disputes strained relations between Madrid and Rabat. The report establishes a temporal connection without drawing a legal conclusion. Moroccan authorities reportedly did not respond to a prior notification; according to Amnesty, no substantive counter-argument of comparable technical depth has been presented. Spanish government bodies had previously made public the compromise of individual devices; no comprehensive, forensically robust official refutation of the attacks documented by Amnesty is known to date.
Amnesty is calling for independent investigations, judicial examination of compromised devices and strong legal safeguards against unlawful surveillance. Until then, exports of surveillance technology should be suspended. The report increases pressure on Spanish politicians to ensure parliamentary scrutiny and establish accountability. It is likely to prompt new diplomatic explanations in relations with Morocco, although a definitive legal assessment of the allegations is still pending.
The central claims are clearly attributed: they are findings and assessments by Amnesty International, based on the described technical traces, internal company documents and court records. The report makes no claims about specific perpetrators or chains of command beyond the DGST. At the same time, the documentation provides verifiable indicators that Spanish courts and oversight bodies can examine.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).