The Madrid-Spanish authorities has fired the director of its highest intelligence company in two separate instances of politician mobile phone hacking, Spanish media studies mentioned Tuesday.

EFE News Agency of Spain and different media studies: SpainThe Cabinet has agreed that Pas Esteban shall be relieved as the pinnacle of the Spanish National Information Center (CNI).

The Cabinet will make an official announcement late Tuesday.

The choice got here after Esteban admitted final week to a personal committee of the Spanish Parliament that her company had legally hacked a number of Catalan separatist telephones after receiving a judicial allow. rice discipline.

Her company has additionally been scrutinized for latest authorities exposures that each Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s and Defense Minister’s cellphones had been additionally contaminated with Pegasus spy ware by “exterior” forces.

Esteban, 64, turned the primary girl to guide CNI in July 2019. This was tentative earlier than being appointed in February 2020.

Esteban’s predecessor was criticized for not stopping Catalan separatist preparations in 2017 for an independence referendum, which was thought-about unlawful by the Spanish Supreme Court.

The alleged cellphone hacking of greater than 60 Catalan politicians, legal professionals and activists was blamed final month in a report by Citizen Labs, a Canadian-based digital rights group.

The record of allegedly contaminated Pegasus spy ware, which the Israeli firm NSO says sells solely to authorities businesses, contains the present regional director in northeastern Catalonia. Hacking will start in late 2019 and CNI shall be dealt with by Esteban, based on a report from Citizen Lab.

The Sanchez minority left-wing coalition needed to depend on a voting parliament from the Catalan separatists threatening to withdraw their help if the federal government didn’t settle for duty for hacking.

Defense Minister Margarita Robles was concerned in a separatist plot that did not separate Catalonia from different elements of Spain 5 years in the past, when the cellphone was the sufferer of one other hack by an unknown actor. Defended the goal of Catalan politicians.

CNI has additionally been accused of neglecting the safety of Sanchez and Robles telephones.

In the aftermath of the Catalan hack, the federal government introduced final week {that a} cellphone scan of the pinnacle of presidency and the Secretary of Defense revealed that they’d been contaminated with Pegasus spy ware in May and June 2021. ..

Spanish Conservative chief, main opponent Party, Blame the choice. He mentioned the federal government had sacrificed Esteban to Catalan separatists.

“It’s a monster that Sanchez will present the pinnacle of the CNI director to the separatists and weaken the state once more to make sure his survival,” common celebration President Alberto Nuñez Feijoo wrote on Twitter. improve.

However, Gabriel Rufián, a parliamentary spokesman for the Catalan ERC, mentioned the dismissal of Esteban was to not appease the separatists.

“It appears logical in a rustic that pays homage to Esteban and admits that the Prime Minister and Defense Minister’s cellphone was illegally spyed to carry the CNI chief accountable,” Rufian mentioned. ..

Esteban all the time saved it unobtrusive, relying on his occupation. After incomes a bachelor’s diploma in her philosophy and literature, she joined the Spanish intelligence company as an analyst in 1983, after which she bought her finest job.