Princess Latifa’s number found on Pegasus list; Saudi Arabia denies report

Princess Latifa and Princess Haya’s phone numbers were reportedly found on the list of Pegasus – an Israeli spyware software – a new investigation revealed. While Princess Latifa is the daughter of the ruler of Dubai, Princess Haya Bint al-Hussain is the ruler’s former wife.

According to a BBC report, their numbers are supposedly part of some 50,000 phone numbers of people, who are believed to be of interest to clients of the Israeli-based NSO group.

Following this, Amnesty International said that the discovery implicates NSO Group “in the catalogue of human rights violations” inflicted on the two women.

In mid-February, a BBC broadcast showed Princess Latifa saying, in a video, that she was being held as a hostage. She fled Dubai in 2019, saying she feared for her life.

Amnesty international called for regulation to rein in “an unchecked surveillance industry”. However, NSO denied any wrongdoing.

NSO said that the software is intended for criminals and terrorists. It is made available only to military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies with good human rights records, NSO said.

The original investigation was “full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories”, the Israel-based group said, BBC reported.

This comes after news articles came to the fore in which thousands of prominent people were reportedly targetted.

After the allegations were levelled against the NSO, the group official said that the Israeli government set up a team to examine them.

-Saudi Arabia denies Pegasus spyware allegations-

In its latest statement, Saudi Arabia discredited “baseless” allegations that it used Israeli-supplied Pegasus to spy on journalists and human rights activists.

“A Saudi official denied the recent allegations reported in media outlets that an entity in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia used software to monitor phone calls,” news agency AFP quoted SPA news agency as saying late Wednesday.

“The source added that such allegations are untrue, and that KSA’s policies do not condone such practices.”

Saudi Arabia was one of a number of governments around the world that was accused of using Pegasus.

NSO Group has been making headlines since 2016 when researchers levelled accusations against it of spying on a dissident in the United Arab Emirates.