The mission chief and founder of NGO
Mediterranea Saving Humans Luca Casarini on Thursday said he
will file a criminal complaint to prosecutors in Rome or Palermo
over the case of Paragon Solutions, whose military-grade hacking
software was allegedly used to spy on 90 people, including
Casarini.
"The legal team of Mediterranea Saving Humans is at work to
present a complain on this case.
"We will ask investigators to determine what happened and who
ordered to spy on my phone through the Paragon software", said
Casarini.
The NGO mission chief said the complaint will be filed to the
State Attorney's offices of Rome or Palermo, or both.
Mediterranea Saving Humans on Wednesday said it had received an
official communication from Meta, which manages the WhatsApp
chat service, informing Casarini that his cell phone "had been
violated in a high-level spyware operation, through the use of a
software described as among the most sophisticated in the
world".
In an exclusive report published on Thursday, The Guardian
newspaper said Paragon Solutions, whose military-grade hacking
software was allegedly used to target up to 90 individuals
including journalists and activists in two dozen countries, has
terminated its client relationship with Italy, quoting a person
familiar with the matter.
The decision to terminate the contract reportedly comes less
than a week after WhatsApp announced that Paragon's software was
also used to target people in Italy, including the
editor-in-chief of online investigative news outlet Fanpage,
Francesco Cancellato, and Casarini.
The Guardian's source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity,
said Paragon had initially suspended the contract with Italy
"out of an abundance of caution" when the first allegation of
potential abuse first emerged.
The decision to fully terminate the contract, the newspaper
quoted its source as saying, was made on Wednesday after the
company determined that Italy had broken the terms of service
and ethical framework it had agreed under its contract,
according to the report.
On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's office at
Palazzo Chigi confirmed that seven Italian citizens had been
targeted.
The government has denied that domestic intelligence services or
the executive were behind the alleged breaches.
Paragon Solutions sells its cyberweapon to government clients
who are meant to use it to prevent crime, the newspaper wrote.
However, it is still unclear whether specific government clients
were behind the alleged attacks, the Guardian added.
On Thursday, European Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert
told reporters that national authorities would be responsible
for probing such allegations and not the EU executive, noting
however that, in general, "any attempt to illegally access the
data of citizens, including journalists and political opponents,
is unacceptable, if proven".
The European Media Freedom Act provides "specific guarantees for
journalists", he also noted.
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