The English High Court has ordered Saudi Arabia to pay a London-based dissident more than £3m after concluding that the kingdom infected his phone with spyware and directed a physical attack against him.Â
A judge ruled that Ghanem al-Masarir, a former Saudi citizen and human rights activist, was
entitled to compensation for the psychiatric harm he had suffered after discovering his phone was hacked in 2018.Â
The court accepted that Saudi authorities infected the phone with Pegasus, a notorious spyware acquired from Israeli tech company NSO Group.Â
The court also concluded that a physical attack suffered by Masarir outside the Harrods department store in west London in August 2018 was directed by Riyadh, for which he was also entitled to compensation.Â
The total damages awarded by the court, to be paid for by the Saudi state, are £3,025,663.Â
“The Claimant was subject to various acts of intimidation between 2015 and 2019,†said Judge Pushpinder Saini. “I infer that [...]
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