The ruler of Dubai ordered the hacking of phones belonging to his former wife and her lawyers during an acrimonious High Court battle over their two children’s futures, senior judges found.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, 72, gave the green light for sixth wife Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein’s communications to be monitored using multimillion-pound Pegasus spyware.
It allowed agents to listen in on the 47-year-old’s phone calls, read her messages and emails, use the camera and microphone, and steal passwords and photos.
Princess Haya said the discovery made her feel ‘both hunted and haunted’.
The use of Pegasus, which is manufactured by the NSO Group and sold exclusively to nation states, came to light in August 2020 when Cherie Blair told Princess Haya’s solicitor Baroness Shackleton that she may have been hacked, the court heard.
Mrs Blair, the wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and then an NSO adviser, contacted the Conservative peer – who has previously represented the Prince of Wales and Sir Paul McCartney – after she was told that the software may have been ‘misused’.
NSO told the court it could not disclose who its customers were, but confirmed that an unnamed customer’s contract had been terminated within weeks of the discovery.
On Wednesday, the High Court published a number of rulings in the ongoing case between Sheikh Mohammed and Princess Haya, the half-sister of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, over their two children.
Last year, Sir Andrew McFarlane – the most senior family judge in England and Wales – found that Sheikh Mohammed ‘ordered and orchestrated’ the abduction and forced return to Dubai of two of his adult daughters: Sheikha Shamsa, 40, in August 2000 and her sister Sheikha Latifa, 35, in 2002 and again in 2018.
In the latest judgments, the High Court made more findings of fact against Sheikh Mohammed, including that the multimillion-pound spyware Pegasus had been used on his estranged wife’s phone with his ‘express or implied authority’.
Sir Andrew ruled that it was more likely than not that the at least attempted surveillance of six phones ‘was carried out by servants or agents of the father, the Emirate of Dubai or the UAE and that the surveillance occurred with the express or implied authority of the father’.
He concluded: ‘The father, who is the head of government of the UAE, is prepared to use the arm of the state to achieve what he regards as right.
‘He has harassed and intimidated the mother both before her departure to England and since. He is prepared to countenance those acting on his behalf doing so unlawfully in the UK.’
Sir Andrew added in a separate judgment that the proceedings had been ‘characterised by coercive and controlling behaviour of a high order’ by the Sheikh.
However, Sir Andrew did not find that the hacking in either July or August 2020 was related to what was happening at that time in the ongoing legal battle over the two children.
The High Court heard that, once on a phone, Pegasus can track a person’s location, read texts and emails, listen to phone calls, record live activity, as well as access apps, photos and operate the camera and microphone.
The spyware can infiltrate a device if a phone user presses on a fraudulent link or even without any action from the phone’s owner at all, according to experts’ evidence.
The court also heard that a person is unlikely to detect that a phone is infected with the spyware ‘even with the most sophisticated and professional antivirus search mechanisms’.
Sir Andrew found proved that at least a ‘very substantial’ 265 megabytes of data had been taken from Princess Haya’s phone, equivalent to around 24 hours of voice recording or 500 photographs, but it was not known what data had been lifted.
At a hearing in October 2020, Princess Haya’s barrister Charles Geekie QC told the court: ‘It had a very, very significant impact on her… she understands and believes that there has been hacking and that is making her feel both hunted and haunted.’
The findings of fact, which are vehemently denied by Sheikh Mohammed, have been found to the civil standard of proof on the balance of probabilities.
While he denied any knowledge of the hacking and offered no evidence to the court, Sheikh Mohammed’s lawyers argued that Princess Haya had not proved her case and that he could not confirm or deny whether the UAE had a contract with the NSO Group.
They also suggested that another country could be responsible, with the billionaire ruler’s barrister arguing that Jordan may have carried out the hacking in order to embarrass Sheikh Mohammed.
After the publication of the judgments Sheikh Mohammed said he continued to deny the allegations, adding: ‘As a Head of Government involved in private family proceedings, it was not appropriate for me to provide evidence on such sensitive matters either personally or via my advisers in a foreign court.
‘Neither the Emirate of Dubai, nor the UAE are party to these proceedings, nor did they participate in the hearing. The findings are therefore inevitably based on an incomplete picture.’
He added that he maintained that the findings were made in an unfair manner.
In August, Sheikh Mohammed brought a Court of Appeal claim against the findings of hacking on the basis of procedural unfairness, however, his appeal was unsuccessful.
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