Hanan Elatr, the widow of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, filed a lawsuit against NSO Group on Thursday, claiming the Israeli spyware firm was negligent in allowing the reported use of its Pegasus hacking tool against Elatr and her late husband, the Washington Post reported.
The lawsuit, which asks for an unspecified amount of money in damages, further claims that NSO infected her cellphone with the spyware as was reported by the Washington Post two years ago. The 2021 report, based on a study from Citizen Lab in Toronto and Amnesty International’s Security Lab, charged that an Emirati government agency downloaded the spyware onto Elatr's phone.
The Washington Post also previously reported that Pegasus was used to target phones belonging to two women close to Khashoggi before and after his death.
NSO Group and its former CEO Shalev Hulio had continuously denied any involvement in the killing of Khashoggi, believed to have been approved by Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS).
NSO continued to deny its clients were involved with the Khashoggi matter in any way, saying its technology hacks cellphones without the need for physical access.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, charged that NSO Group "destroyed the life of Elatr, forcing her to live in fear and isolation, never able to safely return to, or even visit, her family in Egypt or have a normal life," according to the Post.
NSO Group's human rights violation scandal
NSO Group has been under an intense spotlight since the Pegasus Project report, released in 2021, suggested “widespread and continuing abuse” of its spyware by authoritarian governments around the world and used to hack 37 smartphones of journalists, government officials and human rights activists.
Later in 2021, the US Commerce Department announced it has blacklisted NSO Group for engaging in “activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”
In 2022, the New York Times reported that Saudi Arabia received approval from Israel to use the Pegasus spyware following a $55 million deal signed in 2017 between former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and MBS.