Spain denies Morocco had spied on its leaders

The Spanish presidency has dismissed the allegations that Morocco had spied on its Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez or carried hostile acts against Spain.

This came in a Spanish annual security report 2023 by its counter-espionage service which dedicated a large section to Morocco given the cooperation ties between the two countries in critical areas such as curbing illegal migration, fighting organized crime and drug trafficking and countering terrorism and extremism.

“Morocco has not interfered in the domestic affairs of its northern neighbor,” reads the report.

In 2021, Amnesty International accused Morocco- without offering whatsoever evidence- of using Pegasus malware for spying purposes.

Morocco had sued ten media outlets for parroting the Amnesty report accusing Morocco of using Israel’s NSO-made Pegasus to spy on different activists.

In Spain, journalist Ignacio Cembrero accused Morocco of using Pegasus against him but his case was abandoned by a Spanish court after legal experts found no evidence on his phone.

Experts at a Paris appeals court examined Amnesty’s report on the alleged use by Rabat of Pegasus but found no evidence of any infiltration of the so-called targeted people in France.

However, circles hostile to Morocco and its growing influence have used Amnesty’s unfounded accusations in a smear and propaganda campaign to undermine Rabat’s interest in the EU and the European Parliament.