The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has taken legal action against the former director of the CNI, Paz Esteban, and the company NSO Group, owner and marketer of the Pegasus program, in the case of political espionage known as Catalangate. This has been confirmed by the President himself in the Parliament of Catalonia: "It is not only a defense of fundamental rights from an individual point of view, but it is clear that espionage occurred because of my responsibilities as a member of the Government."

The chief executive has argued that "so that it does not happen again to any other government, not even to any other citizen, in the event of any violation, it is necessary to get to the bottom of the matter" and again asked that "the culprit takes its share of responsibility", he said.

Government demands explanations

Government spokeswoman Patrícia Plaja, during the press conference after the Executive Council, explained that the report released by Citizen Lab "confirms that the president was attacked on at least four occasions without being able to ensure that there had been no further attacks".

These infections threaten the individual rights of the president but, at the same time, have a projection that extends to the rights linked to the exercise of their political and representative responsibilities, particularly in their case for the position he holds. Plaja stressed that "it is obvious from a criminal responsibility perspective of the legal person, that NSO must have systems to verify the legality of the use of its technological tools". In this sense, he believes that "either they do not have one, or they are not effective enough to give rise to situations of mass political espionage by governmental or non-governmental actors".

The spokeswoman has demanded explanations from the CNI for "discovering who has the Pegasussoftware, who is responsible for using it or against whom it was used with". "It's a useful and necessary procedure," he said. The most important proof comes from the revelation that the Director of the CNI explained that the intelligence agency had spied on several pro-independence political leaders, including President Aragonès. On the other hand, Plaja has argued that it is "clear that the characteristics of the spied objectives as well as the moment in which they were, demonstrate a clear motivation of a political nature".

He stressed that "beyond the necessary investigation that will have to determine the scope of the facts, their implications, the damages caused and the identification of all participants, it is clear that they constitute a criminal offense worthy of investigation."

"The facts are clearly acts of espionage, consummated or attempted, of interception of communications, illegal intrusion into computer devices and acquisition and production of precursors of espionage." In this sense, he explained that the investigation must be able to ensure that the issue is urgently addressed to discover the facts in its integrity, preserve evidence that may disappear, find out the identity of the perpetrators, discover the scope of the information stolen from the sixty victims, lead an investigation of the agile facts that avoids the prescription of the illicit,avoid the impunity of the facts and ensure the rescue of the damages caused to the victims.