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Join on Telegram Rabat – Olivier Baratelli, a lawyer representing Morocco in the Pegasus defamation lawsuit in France, denounced “the manipulation of information” and the “massive rumors” that targeted Morocco and its institutions on Friday.
The lawyer said that the parties accusing Morocco of using spyware against journalists, activists and foreign officials have provided “no evidence” to support their case, according to Moroccan newspaper Al Ahdath Al Maghribia.
“Today, 19 months on, there is nothing,” Baratelli said. “We knew this was a lie and that it was a rumor and a massive international project to destabilize Morocco.”
He also expressed optimism regarding the outcome of the case, saying that there is “a real sense of listening” among the magistrates who will issue a verdict on April 12.
Lending credence to Baratelli’s optimism is the fact that then-French prime minister Jean Castex had denied that President Emmanuel Macron’s phone had been hacked.
Morocco had filed defamation lawsuits in Paris against Amnesty International, Forbidden Stories, as well as news outlets that supported the Pegasus report’s claims, including outlets such as Le Monde and France Info, the lawyer said.
“We knew that this was not correct, and despite that in November, Le Monde and France Inter continued spreading rumors,” Baratelli said in Paris. “That is why we relaunched five defamation measures against him.”
In 2021, Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories published a report alleging that Morocco had used Israeli spyware Pegasus to spy on activists, journalists, and foreign officials, including heads of state.
Shortly following the report’s release, Morocco filed defamation lawsuits in France as it continued to deny the allegations.
More recently, spyware and forensics expert Jonathan Scott published a report debunking the claims. Scott notably pointed to the presence of false positives in Amnesty’s data, as well as a lack of transparency in the report’s methodology.
