A judge has ordered the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to pay compensation of £3m to a London-based dissident who was subject to “grossly intrusive” surveillance after spyware was installed on his mobile phone.
The UK’s High Court accepted in a ruling yesterday that the Saudi regime had infected human rights activist Ghanem Al-Masarir’s mobile phone with Pegasus spyware supplied by Israeli tech company NSO Group.
The court heard that the Kingdom had subjected Al-Masarir to a campaign of intimidation, surveillance and a physical attack in the UK, which had a catastrophic effect on his life and left him unable to work or perform day-to-day activities.
Al-Masarir, 45, who has lived in the UK since 2003 and was granted asylum in 2018, produced satirical videos on human rights issues, which he shared on YouTube, attracting 350 million views.
An investigation by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto found that two of Al-Masarir’s iPhones had been infected with Pegasus spyware in 2018, after he received text messages purporting to come from organisations including delivery company DHL and newspaper Arab News.
Pegasus has the capability to extract personal data and files from infected devices and track their location. It can intercept and record voice calls, and can turn mobile phones into bugging devices, which can be used to clandestinely record conversations or take photographs.
Two months after his phones were infected, Al-Masarir was followed by two men, one of whom was wearing an earpiece. One of them shouted at him, making references to the ruling Saudi royal family. The man then punched Al-Masarir in the face and attacked him until a passerby intervened.
Al-Masarir subsequently received threats from Saudi-linked accounts on social media site Twitter, and on one occasion was approached by a child in a café who sang him a song praising the Saudi regime. The incident was filmed and posted on social media, with pejorative comments, and was shown on state-owned Saudi television.
On another occasion, a man approached Al-Masarir in West London and told him in Arabic that his days were numbered, then walked off.
The judge, Justice Pushpinder Saini, said he was satisfied that Al-Masarir had been subject to acts of intimidation between 2015 and 2019, and inferred that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or its agents were responsible.
“In my judgment, there is a compelling basis for concluding that the claimant’s iPhones were hacked by Pegasus spyware, which resulted in the exfiltration of data from those mobile phones, and that this conduct was directed or authorised by the KSA or agents acting on its behalf,” the judge stated.
The judge added that Al-Masari’s activities as an online activist in support of human rights in Saudi Arabia and in opposition to the Saudi government represented a proper exercise of his free speech rights and were protected by human rights law.
“They could not possibly justify the hacking and surveillance. It follows that there is no real prospect of the KSA successfully defending the claim in misuse of personal information,” he said.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia bought Pegasus in 2017 after Saudi intelligence officials met with representatives of the Israeli firm NSO, which developed the spyware. NSO has refused to confirm or deny whether it made the sale.
The Kingdom’s use of Pegasus was implicated in the murder of US journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed after walking into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
Citizen Lab’s investigation revealed a network of Pegasus proxy servers that were linked to text messages sent to Al-Masarir and five other targets of interest to Saudi Arabia.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had previously argued that it had state immunity from Al-Masarir’s legal claim.
The UK High Court ruled in 2022 that state immunity did not apply and that Al-Masarir had provided enough evidence to conclude on the balance of probabilities that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was responsible for the purported spyware and the alleged assault.
Al-Masarir said yesterday’s judgment brought a “long and painful chapter” to a close.
“No amount of money can undo what I have suffered, but I hope the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will now do the right thing and comply with this judgment without the need for further enforcement action,” he added.
Sapna Malik, a partner at UK law firm Leigh Day, who represented Al-Masarir, said he hoped the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would promptly pay the compensation so that Al-Masarir could move on with his life.
“The grossly intrusive conduct, by which huge amounts of our client’s data and information on every aspect of his life were secretly transmitted to it, has had a profound and long-lasting impact on him,” said Malik.
