The Council of Ministers will respond this Tuesday to the request sent by the judge of the National High Court José Luis Calama, to authorize the former director of the CNI, Paz Esteban, and the technicians of the National Cryptologic Center who analyzed and accredited the espionage to the cell phones of Pedro Sánchez and the ministers Margarita Robles and Fernando Grande-Marlaska a year ago now, to appear and testify before the court about their investigations in this regard, in case they are called to testify.
Moncloa sources explain to La Vanguardia that it is a mere formal procedure, in accordance with the law, before the start of the investigation by the judge of the National High Court after the complaint filed by the General Attorney of the State once it was accredited that the cell phones of Sánchez, Robles and Marlaska were infected with the Pegasus program in May and June 2021. The CNI detected that an attempt was also made to attack, although without success, the telephone number of the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas.
Given the request sent by Judge Calama, within the framework of the investigation on espionage to the President of the Government and the ministers, the Government confirms that there is no document to declassify in this process (as would happen, for example, in the event of that it would be necessary to make known the judicial motivations to allow the CNI to be wiretapped), but it does authorize the intelligence service officials who participated in these investigations to appear and testify in court about the expert analysis they prepared to prove this espionage in the Executive. Moncloa sources point out that in order for these officials to be able to tell the judge the information they have in this regard, they must have the authorization of the Council of Ministers.
This Government procedure is limited, in any case, to the espionage suffered by Sánchez and the ministers with the Pegasus program, without any relation to the wiretaps that the CNI carried out on independence leaders, all of them with judicial authorization, according to the former director of the intelligence service before the commission of official secrets of the Congress.
