Morocco through its ambassador in Berlin, Zohour Alaoui has filed a request for an injunction against the German newspaper publisher “Süddeutsche Zeitung GmbH” over the Pegasus espionage scandal.
The injunction is over “false accusations on the supposed use of the Pegasus spyware by the kingdom of Morocco,” the Moroccan press reported on Tuesday.
According to the request, “Süddeutsche Zeitung GmbH had alleged in several reports, partly in the form of established facts and partly in the form of suspicions, that Morocco had deployed the so-called Pegasus spyware and had used it to spy on and tap the mobile phones of numerous politicians, journalists and other people,” the Moroccan embassy in Berlin said in a statement.
The kingdom which firmly refutes these allegations, has never acquired and therefore never used the Pegasus spy software, the statement said.
This legal action in Germany comes after defamation proceedings already initiated by Morocco in France against Amnesty International, Forbidden Stories, Le Monde, Mediapart and Radio France.
On July 22, Morocco had launched its first defamation lawsuit against Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories, the two organizations at the origin of the kingdom’s accusations of infiltrating the phones of several national and foreign public figures through the Pegasus software.
On 28 July, Morocco filed new direct defamation suits against the daily Le Monde and its director, Jerome Fenoglio, the news website Mediapart and its owner, Edwy Plenel, and Radio France.
HA/fss/as/APA