Israeli academics and activists demand criminal investigation into sale of Pegasus to Ghana – Report
Even though there is enough evidence indicating that Ghana has obtained and is probably using the dangerous spyware, Pegasus, there is deafening silence about the subject in the country. However, not in Israel, the country where NSO Group, developers of the spyware are based.
According to a report by the Peoples Dispatch, a former speaker of Israel’s parliament, some academics and activists in that country have asked for an investigation into the sale of the Pegasus software to Ghana. NSO Group sold the spyware to Ghana in 2016 through a private reseller in a transaction that was judged as illegal and corrupt by an Accra High Court in 2020. Three former government officials were jailed for the act.
The report states that on behalf of Israeli parliament’s former speaker, Avrum Burg, prominent sociologist Eva Illouz and 51 other academics and human rights activists, Advocate Eitay Mack have written to that country’s Attorney General (AG), Gali Baharav-Miara, on Sunday, May 22, demanding an investigation.
The complaint addressed to the AG asks her “to open a criminal investigation” into the allegedly illegal sale of the defense equipment by NSO to Ghana’s National Communications Authority (NCA) in 2016, through a Ghana-registered private company called Infralocks Development Limited (IDL), the report added.
While there has never been a reaction from government on the matter, it is now known that Pegasus may have been used on people connected to the opposition party in Ghana.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
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