SAN FRANCISCO\/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.N. experts have demanded an immediate investigation by U.S. and other authorities into allegations that Saudi Arabia\u2019s crown prince was involved in a plot to hack the phone of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.N. special rapporteurs, Agnes Callamard and David Kaye, said on Wednesday they had information pointing to the \u201cpossible involvement\u201d of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the alleged 2018 cyberattack, which preceded alleged threats by the National Enquirer to publish intimate photographs of the billionaire tech tycoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Callamard, the special rapporteur for extra-judicial killings, and Kaye, special rapporteur for free expression, said the allegation of Saudi involvement \u201cdemands immediate investigation by U.S. and other relevant authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saudi officials dismissed the allegations as absurd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rapporteurs based their call for an investigation on a 17-page forensic report drawn up by Washington-based FTI Consulting. The report alleges with \u201cmedium to high confidence\u201d that Bezos\u2019 iPhone X was hijacked by a malicious video file sent from a WhatsApp account used by the crown prince on May 1, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report, first published by Motherboard, said that within hours of receiving the video file there was \u201can anomalous and extreme change\u201d in the device\u2019s behavior, with the level of outgoing data from the phone jumping nearly 300-fold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FTI Consulting did not respond to messages seeking further details on the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The allegations could further damage relations between Bezos and Riyadh and risk harming the kingdom\u2019s reputation with foreign powers and investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O<\/a>) declined to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hacking is said to have taken place months before the October 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for the Bezos-owned Washington Post and critic of the crown prince.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The CIA believes that Prince Mohammed ordered the killing of Khashoggi, sources told Reuters weeks later (read story here<\/a>). He was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by Saudi agents and his body dismembered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prince Mohammed, or MbS, said last year that the killing was carried out by rogue operatives and that he did not order it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud dismissed the allegations of the prince\u2019s involvement in any phone hack of Bezos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think \u2018absurd\u2019 is exactly the right word,\u201d he told Reuters in an interview in Davos. \u201cThe idea that the crown prince would hack Jeff Bezos\u2019 phone is absolutely silly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saudi Arabia\u2019s U.S. embassy also dismissed the allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out,\u201d it said in a message posted on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Twitter, Bezos published a photograph of himself at a service for Khashoggi with a single word: \u201cJamal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The special rapporteurs, who released their findings in a statement, report to the United Nations Human Rights Council but they are independent watchdogs and not U.N. officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their recommendations are not binding on countries, though are widely seen as carrying moral weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They stopped short of identifying which specific technology might have been used in the alleged hack, but said software like that made by Israeli company NSO Group or Italian spyware maker Hacking Team could potentially have been deployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NSO denied its technology was used in the alleged hack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe know this because of how our software works and our technology cannot be used on U.S. phone numbers,\u201d it said. \u201cOur products are only used to investigate terror and serious crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a merger last year, Hacking Team is now part of Swiss-Italian cyber intelligence firm Memento Labs. Memento Labs\u2019 head, Paolo Lezzi, was not immediately available to comment but has previously said he has no knowledge of Hacking Team\u2019s former operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The alleged hack deepens the intrigue around how the Enquirer – which had close links with U.S. President Donald Trump at the time of the alleged extortion – obtained messages exchanged between Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, an ex-TV anchor who the tabloid said he was dating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year Bezos\u2019 security chief said the Saudi government was the source of the messages. A month before, Bezos had accused the Enquirer\u2019s owner of trying to blackmail him with the threat of publishing \u201cintimate photos\u201d he allegedly sent to Sanchez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this took place as Trump – who has closely allied the United States with bin Salman – was clashing with Bezos and the Washington Post in public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor,” Trump gloated here<\/a> on Twitter as news of the clash between Bezos and the Enquirer went public. “Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Saudi government has denied having anything to do with the National Enquirer\u2019s reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Guardian newspaper first reported the crown prince\u2019s alleged involvement in the phone hacking targeting Bezos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SAN FRANCISCO\/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.N. experts have demanded an immediate investigation by U.S. and other authorities into allegations that Saudi Arabia\u2019s crown prince was involved in a plot to hack the phone of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos. The U.N. special rapporteurs, Agnes Callamard and David Kaye, said on Wednesday they had information pointing to the \u201cpossible involvement\u201d of Crown Prince… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3956,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3955\/revisions\/3956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}SPYWARE SUSPECTS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
NATIONAL ENQUIRER<\/h3>\n\n\n\n