Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro called on people to verify if their phones showed traces of Israeli surveillance software Pegasus.
In a tweet, Petro additionally urged people who participated in the 2021 anti-government protests and associates of victims of police brutality to use the software that was developed by Amnesty International.
The president said that “I will try to hire a specialized service that detects traces of infection of “pegasus” on citizens’ phones.”
Anyone who has suspicions of illegal infection of their phone can consult this page or when we provide the government service. I ask young people who were close to or called youth leaders who disappeared or died in the strike to use these services.
President Gustavo Petro
The tweet comes almost a week after the president confirmed a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which said that Colombian authorities purchased the infamous spyware in 2021.
In a televised address, Petro specified that Colombia’s Police Intelligence Directorate (DIPOL) paid for the software in cash, according to an investigation by Israel’s financial intelligence unit IMPA.
Colombia’s police intelligence purchased Israeli spyware in secret: Petro
Petro’s former intelligence chief, Carlos Ramon Gonzalez, said in July that investigations indicate that the alleged purchase of the Pegasus software was kept off the record.
Haaretz reported in March that Israeli intelligence sources said that the softwar had been paid by money that had been seized from drug traffickers.
The former administrative aide of former President Ivan Duque, Victor Muñoz, told media on Monday that “there was never an order on the behalf of President Ivan Duque to acquire Pegasus software.”
At the time of the alleged purchase, the company that made Pegasus was being lambasted by human rights organizations over the software’s use in the spying on human rights defenders and journalists.
