Jamal Khashoggi’s widow files case against NSO Group: Breach of privacy she claims

Khashoggi’s widow files case

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi, 59, was an ardent critic of the incumbent Saudi government. Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr, has sued Israeli business NSO Group for monitoring her communications in the months prior to her husband’s murder. Invoking a jury trial, the case was submitted on Thursday to the federal tribunal in Virginia. The lawsuit filed by Hanan Elatr Khashoggi claims that NSO Group broke Virginia along with federal hacking laws when it sold its potent and frequently undetected malware to oppressive foreign regimes. Hanan Elatr Khashoggi is requesting an unspecified sum in damages.

Israeli cyber-intelligence company NSO Group Technologies is prominently recognized because of the proprietary spyware Pegasus, a program that allows zero-click remote surveillance of cellphones. Hanan suspects that when she had been visiting the UAE months preceding Khashoggi’s killing, the Pegasus malware was secretly put on two Android phones.

The legal lawsuit, which was filed on Thursday at the Northern District of Virginia, claims that NSO deliberately targeted her devices, inflicted her severe suffering due to the unfortunate death of her spouse, and deprived her of her security, privacy, as well as freedom.

According to the lawsuit, Khashoggi has been cut off from her family for years because she has been unable to visit the Middle East out of concern for her personal safety. The lawsuit claims that Hanan is still experiencing repercussions from the NSO Group’s intrusion into her devices. She does not have the ability to securely engage in social activities because of her continual hypervigilance and particularly always finds herself always watching her back.

The lawsuit, which demands both punitive and compensatory damages, accuses NSO Group of persistently violating the fundamental rights to privacy as well as personal freedom by the development, distribution, and use of exceptionally sophisticated and harmful spyware.

It goes on to assert that the NSO’s actions had terrible effects, which include intimidation, bodily harm, and even death, along with the claim that Elatr Khashoggi’s life had been permanently changed for the worse by this intimidation.

According to Elatr Khashoggi’s complaint, in April 2018, when she showed up at Dubai International Airport on the job as a flight attendant, she was subsequently handcuffed, blindfolded, and moved into an interrogating room wherein she underwent questioning regarding Jamal Khashoggi for a number of hours. In line with her lawsuit, experts have determined that malware was probably put on the device she was using during the interview.

In accordance to the lawsuit, Hanan was arrested and her abductors stole both of the smartphones she had been using for communicating with Jamal. The United Arab Emirates, a totalitarian state renowned for imprisoning human rights activists that attacks with Pegasus along with a close friend of Saudi Arabia, reportedly installed the sophisticated spyware on Elatr Khashoggi’s phone in 2021, according to the Washington Post.

A few months following when his wife had been taken into custody, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. He may be believed to have been followed by Pegasus as well.

The Q Cyber Technologies subsidiary NSO Group first claimed not to have been aware of the complaint. The corporation did not reply right away even after receiving a copy. The business that sells surveillance equipment to law enforcement as well as intelligence agencies across the globe has repeatedly refuted claims that Khashoggi had been hacked using their equipment.

The defense contractor L3 Harris attempted to purchase the company, demonstrating the strength of its technological advances, but withdrew after facing heavy public criticism from the administration of Joe Biden, which banned the spyware company in 2021.

Background of Khashoggi and The Case

Being a journalist, Khashoggi published numerous articles in the Washington Post that were disparaging of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi was assassinated on October 2, 2018, inside the consular building of his home country in Istanbul, and since that time, the story has dominated worldwide news and discussions.

In 2021, American intelligence came to the conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had given the go-ahead for a raid to kidnap or murder Khashoggi. The Saudi government continues to claim that Khashoggi’s assassination was a horrific act committed by a renegade cell and denied any participation by the crown prince. Five of the 11 men who were found guilty of the murder by the Saudi authorities and given the death penalty eventually had their convictions overturned.

The Saudi Crown Prince is granted immunity in the US in the Khashoggi assassination case by the Biden administration in November 2022.

The Israeli cybersecurity business NSO Group specializes in designing and supplying surveillance tools to foreign intelligence alongside law enforcement agencies. The company’s primary product, Pegasus, has proved to be the subject of several disagreements. A powerful spyware tool called Pegasus may infiltrate cell phones, as well as gain access to calls, messages, and other additional sensitive data. The NSO Group has come under fire for allegedly enabling governments to utilize its technology to harass journalists, activists, and dissidents.

Since Khashoggi’s murder, Pegasus software has received attention on a global scale and has lately come to light in campaigns in Spain, Greece, Poland, Hungary, and other nations that target dissidents, opposing candidates for office, in addition to journalists.

Pegasus usage by Saudi Arabia has been brought up in other contentious situations. According to Reuters, the Saudi government’s effort to use Pegasus to target campaigner for Saudi women’s rights Loujain al-Hathloul last year backfired, exposing hundreds of different victims and setting off a chain reaction of judicial and governmental action.

Due to concerns about human rights, the government of the United States has placed limits on conducting business with NSO. Additionally, the corporation is being sued for its spying activities by both Apple Inc. as well as Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of WhatsApp.

Connection between NSO group and killing of Khashoggi

A collaborative inquiry conducted by the Guardian along with its Pegasus Project partners this past year discovered additional evidence of the fact that an NSO patron had targeted Elatr some months prior to her husband’s murder, between the period of November 2017 and April 2018. The Pegasus program may turn a cell phone into a monitoring device, activating microphones and cameras devoid of the user’s knowledge.

In 2021, a forensic assessment of Elatr’s Android phone revealed the fact that she had in fact been sent four messages via text with malicious URLs related to Pegasus, albeit the investigation did not establish successful installation.

Elatr was detained by UAE intelligence agencies after being apprehended in the Dubai International Airport in April 2018, and activities on her seized phone during the period in question indicates that a concerted effort had been attempted to deploy the malware at that time. Elatr, who is presently in the United States and has requested political asylum, is attempting to get two cell phones, an iPad, as well as a laptop thought to be in the hands of the Turkish government in order to support her claim.

She stated that it is crucial to hold those responsible for this terrible murder accountable. She insisted that her spouse was a calm individual. She continued by stating her belief in American justice. A representative for NSO denied Elatr’s accusations. According to him, NSO has constantly said that neither their technology nor the killing of Jamal Khashoggi nor any one of his close family members, which includes Hanan Elatr, was connected in any manner whatsoever.

Elatr said that she was adamant about using the US legal system to obtain full information about any potential spies on her partner and his family in the time leading up to his death. Elatr is looking for the mobile phones along with additional items she believes the Turkish government is holding that belonged to her husband and were in Istanbul around the time of his murder while she prepares her legal case.

In the past year, Randa Fahmy, Elatr’s legal advisor, tried to obtain the above-mentioned devices from the Turkish embassy in Washington but was unsuccessful because the officials insisted that she must file a court request in Turkey.

However, there is a lot of pressure on the White House to take corrective action when a Turkish court decided to halt the trial of 26 Saudis charged with the murder in absentia before it was moved to Saudi Arabia. In a statement, Callamard claimed that she had previously been prevented from getting the phones.

She claimed that being the UN’s special rapporteur looking into Jamal Khashoggi’s killing by the Saudi government, she had been aware from the moment she began that the Turkish government was keeping Jamal’s phones as well as computer for the purpose of their investigations.

She said that during her inquiry, she had questioned the prosecutor during meetings about whether or not they had looked into the devices or if the mobile devices or computers had been compromised with, but she had only ever received the response that they were still looking into it.

Given how challenging it is to detect and identify spywares like Pegasus, she proposed at her most recent discussion with the prosecutor that perhaps more specialists, such as those from the FBI, should be consulted. However, they rejected or disputed the suggestion. She was hopeful that the prosecution would provide details they had gathered from Jamal’s computers or phones when on the trial in Turkey. However, as is well known, this tragically did not occur, and the Turkish trial has already been abruptly concluded without delivering justice.

Callamard, who is currently Amnesty International‘s secretary general, claimed that he was aware of Hanan Elatr Khashoggi’s attempts to obtain these goods from the Turkish government and he mentioned that he undoubtedly supports such initiatives.

The Turkish government has made it clear unequivocally that it is not going to continue with the inquiry and trial. It should thus turn over any remaining evidence to individuals who are sincerely and authentically motivated to uncover the truth regarding Jamal’s death. Establishing if his mobile devices were actually hacked, whether he had been undergoing digital monitoring, as well as recognizing the spywares are all critical factors when it comes to truth telling along with comprehending and deterring dissident targeting.

Violating Rights through Surveillance Technologies

When persons are pursued for political objectives via surveillance technologies, serious problems regarding human rights are raised. Governments as well as intelligence agencies must be held accountable for the misuse of these capabilities, as well as the ensuing violations of people’s rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The situation of Jamal Khashoggi’s widow highlights the need for rigorous regulation and regulatory measures to prevent state and non-state entities from exploiting surveillance technologies.

The complaint filed by Hanan Elatr Khashoggi is yet another example of the rising requirement for more transparency and accountability within the surveillance technology business. Organizations like NSO Group must be thoroughly reviewed to ensure that their goods are not getting utilized in ways which undermine human rights or encourage criminal conduct. Governments and international organizations should work together to develop comprehensive norms and rules to avoid the misuse of surveillance technologies.

The distraught widow of Jamal Khashoggi’s lawsuit against NSO Group highlights the troubling link between surveillance technologies and human rights breaches. As the lawsuit progresses, NSO Group’s actions and the accountability of surveillance technology suppliers will be extensively scrutinized. The outcome of this case, as well as the additional legal challenges with which NSO Group is dealing, might have a substantial influence on the surveillance industry and how people’s liberties and rights are safeguarded in the digital era.