Speaker 1: Hey there, Dransportista listeners. I'm Nando Vila. We're taking over
Speaker 1: the feed to share a pretty wild story with you.
Speaker 1: It's called Shoot the Messenger, Espionage, murder and Pegasus Spyware.
Speaker 1: I've been working on this project for over two years.
Speaker 1: Shoot the Messenger is a new bi weekly serialized podcast
Speaker 1: from Exile Content. Season one is all about Pegasus spyware.
Speaker 1: Pegasus is the world's most sophisticated spyware to date. It
Speaker 1: can give full access to your phone. That means everything,
Speaker 1: your texts, emails, phone calls, camera, microphone everything. How did
Speaker 1: this spyware come to be? We'll investigate how it works,
Speaker 1: who makes it, and the industry booming around it. In
Speaker 1: episode one, which you're about to hear, will start with
Speaker 1: the murder of journalist Jamal Kashogi and uncover how Pegasus
Speaker 1: was found on the phones of many in his inner circle.
Speaker 1: Here is Shoot the Messenger. Dubai is known for luxury,
Speaker 1: high end shopping and a bump in nightlife. The heat
Speaker 1: and the United Arab Emirates can be oppressive, but in
Speaker 1: springtime Dubai can be pleasant. You can expect sunshine with
Speaker 1: clear skies, balmy but not too hot. It was a
Speaker 1: night like this on April twenty first, twenty eighteen, when Hanan,
Speaker 1: a latter, landed in her hometown of Dubai after twenty
Speaker 1: two years as a flight attendant with Emirates Airlines. The
Speaker 1: routine had long turned to muscle memory. On this Saturday night,
Speaker 1: Hanan had just finished a long flight from Toronto. Her
Speaker 1: shift was over and she was tired and ready to
Speaker 1: go home. Hanan would have been wearing the standard Emerani uniform,
Speaker 1: a fitted cream colored blazer with red piping with the
Speaker 1: signature red pillbox hat. And this is where I like
Speaker 1: to imagine Hanan and red pumps clacking along in the
Speaker 1: manner which is distinctive to crew and pilots no matter
Speaker 1: how often you fly, pulling a black roll away behind her,
Speaker 1: always black, and maybe she had one of those squarish
Speaker 1: tote bags strapped on top of her roll away. Hanan
Speaker 1: had deboarded a plane, exited the gate area, and walked
Speaker 1: through immigration at Dubai's International Airport thousands of times, but
Speaker 1: this time something was different. And this immigration people they
Speaker 1: know me by name. He normally took my passport to
Speaker 1: speak to me about my filife, but in this case,
Speaker 1: he said, Hannah, within a sif the system is down
Speaker 1: and I feel there is something roome. Hanan rushed into
Speaker 1: a nearby bathroom and locked herself in a stall. She
Speaker 1: called the person she always called once she landed at home,
Speaker 1: her sister, and I told this my sister, there is
Speaker 1: something go on. Hanan had a terrible feeling that the
Speaker 1: Emaradi men hanging around immigration had something to do with
Speaker 1: her fiance. Her fiance was a journalist known for speaking
Speaker 1: out on human rights, and in the UAE, loudly defending
Speaker 1: human rights could get you detained or even jailed. Hanan's
Speaker 1: fiance had already told her he worried about the way
Speaker 1: his work would impact her life. He gave me the
Speaker 1: engagement drink, and when he puts a rink in my hand,
Speaker 1: he sits Hannan and his skit. I might be a
Speaker 1: curse in new life. I might create a problem for you.
Speaker 1: Hanan wasn't involved in politics, She hadn't had any run
Speaker 1: ins with the police, But sitting in that bathroom stall
Speaker 1: in the Dubai airport, her fiance's words echoed in her head.
Speaker 1: I remember this wound. I was very scared. She gathered
Speaker 1: herself and left the stall. When Hanan walked out of
Speaker 1: the bathroom, she was quickly flanked by Emarati intelligence officers.
Speaker 1: One of the member Toldni, woke was us quietly in
Speaker 1: the behavior, Chef, I realized you just have to comply
Speaker 1: with Jim. Hanan was then handcuffed, blindfolded, put in a car,
Speaker 1: and taken to an interrogation cell. I cannot express to
Speaker 1: you what is by feeling gives this time the band
Speaker 1: in my stomach from the bank. The intelligence officers demanded
Speaker 1: she hand over all of her devices, a laptop and
Speaker 1: two Android phones, and that she share her passwords. She
Speaker 1: was taken to a remote location where she was questioned
Speaker 1: overnight and into the morning. Seventeen hours later, the intelligence
Speaker 1: officers returned Hanan's devices and took her home. Hanan wanted
Speaker 1: to resume the life she'd built for herself, leading a
Speaker 1: cabin crew across trans atlantic flights, traveling and visiting family.
Speaker 1: She looked forward to her wedding ceremony in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Just a couple of months away. But after she was detained,
Speaker 1: everything changed. It turns out that while Hanan was being questioned,
Speaker 1: the Emaraudi intelligence officers were executing a much more effective
Speaker 1: plan to get information from her. I never had my
Speaker 1: normal life back. That's because when Amaradi intelligence officers had
Speaker 1: Hanan's phone, they installed a highly sophisticated piece of spywear,
Speaker 1: and as Hanan went about her life, the spywear had
Speaker 1: unknowingly turned her into an informant, providing a direct window
Speaker 1: to the person she cared about. Most fears are growing
Speaker 1: over the fate of missing Saudi journalist Jamakah, who vanished
Speaker 1: after entering the Saudi Arabian Consulate. The restrung bold details
Speaker 1: are pouring in about the likely death of this Washington
Speaker 1: Post columnist, Kagi, and they are just simply horrifying. Jamal Kashogi,
Speaker 1: Hanan's newly wet husband, the Saudi journalist who had been
Speaker 1: living in Washington, d c. In self exile writing op
Speaker 1: eds for the Washington Post, was assassinated just months after
Speaker 1: her detention. We never thought me, uncle Jamal. They will
Speaker 1: be extremists to the level to kill him in this
Speaker 1: terrible way. When Kashogi disappeared from the Saudi consulate in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, it would be weeks before the world learned
Speaker 1: what occurred in his final hours. But it's taken years
Speaker 1: for us to learn he wasn't just killed, he was
Speaker 1: systematically hunted in a way we have never seen before.
Speaker 1: And what we now know is that the first weapon
Speaker 1: used against Kashogi was digital and it's called Pegasus. Pegasus
Speaker 1: is probably the most advanced piece of sware. It is
Speaker 1: effectively the most invasive form of survey and it's imaginable.
Speaker 1: Licenses this software to intelligence and law enforcement agencies worldwide.
Speaker 1: Tool can also be deployed by a government to crush descent.
Speaker 1: Pecasus is a kind of software that can be used
Speaker 1: to hijack your phone. It's a military grade spying software.
Speaker 1: It's this magic thing. It can infect your phone, and
Speaker 1: once it does, it's inside of your phone and it's
Speaker 1: like a little worm and it can burrow into every
Speaker 1: piece of equipment in your phone. This is Dana Priest.
Speaker 1: She covers national security for the Washington Post, the same
Speaker 1: newspaper as Jamal Kashogi. It can turn the microphone on,
Speaker 1: it can turn the camera on. It can go into
Speaker 1: all of your photos, all of your emails, even your
Speaker 1: deleted messages, and scoop them up and take them somewhere
Speaker 1: twenty four seven and you'll never know it. You'll never
Speaker 1: know it. Pecasus implicates several countries and multiple government agencies
Speaker 1: and unites unlikely allies. It's part of a massive and
Speaker 1: mostly unregulated, multibillion dollar global industry. Battlefields aren't physical anymore.
Speaker 1: They aren't far away across oceans or borders. They're in
Speaker 1: our pocket. And the threats that journalists face as they
Speaker 1: seek out and reveal uncomfortable truths are threats that we
Speaker 1: are all vulnerable to, no matter where we live, who
Speaker 1: we know, and what we do. Jamaica Shogi's assassination reveals
Speaker 1: that journalists are the canaries in the coal mine these days.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a high profile journalist, or
Speaker 1: a dissident or a famous truthteller to get swept up.
Speaker 1: If you've ever had a phone, if you've ever had
Speaker 1: a secret, you're at risk. Two. I'm Nando Vila and
Speaker 1: I'm Rose Reed and this is Shoot the Messenger, a
Speaker 1: new investigative reporting podcast from Exile Content Studio. Every season,
Speaker 1: we investigate one international news story you may have heard
Speaker 1: the headlines. This is the deep dive. Nando and I
Speaker 1: started the series with one question, what is the biggest
Speaker 1: threat to journalists today. We put up a bulletin board
Speaker 1: and stuck a pen for every journalist who was threatened
Speaker 1: or assassinated or if they had a family member who
Speaker 1: was threatened or assassinated directly because of their work in
Speaker 1: the last five years. And we found one link that
Speaker 1: kept coming up again and again, from Mexico to DC
Speaker 1: to the United Arab Emirates Pegasus. How did this spyware
Speaker 1: come to be? How does it work? And how vulnerable
Speaker 1: are you? Over the course of ten episodes, we're doing
Speaker 1: a special partnership with the Committee to Protect Journalists on espionage,
Speaker 1: murder and Pegasus spyware? Hell could have happened in there?
Speaker 1: Which piece together what happened almost like who done it?
Speaker 1: Given one instance of an attack, can we trace that
Speaker 1: to other instances in the other countries as well? Regardings
Speaker 1: are spying and the Bagatis, we did not know. They
Speaker 1: did track him through me because they know am the
Speaker 1: closest to unto him. They starget me. Episode one Jamaica Shogi,
Speaker 1: a story told in three parts his life, death and betrayal.
Speaker 1: Jamal was a great man as a journalist and as
Speaker 1: a husband. Hanana latter first met Jamalka Shogi at a
Speaker 1: conference in two thousand and nine. Jamal is a kind
Speaker 1: of person we can say is not in the right
Speaker 1: or left. He's in the medal in his opinion and
Speaker 1: his vision because his very open minded. Any bad grounds
Speaker 1: can sit down with Jamal, any race, any idology and
Speaker 1: do you have a different view from him, but you
Speaker 1: will walk away with a smile. Nana Kashogi captain touch
Speaker 1: and they are friends for almost a decade before their
Speaker 1: romance began. Imit Jamal first time two thousand nine in
Speaker 1: Dubai where I grown up and I remember very well.
Speaker 1: We had a conversation over two hours. He was talking
Speaker 1: about the Middle East politics and forum policy of US
Speaker 1: toward the Middle East, and we realize we are like
Speaker 1: a twin and we continue. And I always used to
Speaker 1: give him a feedback in any article, any publish opinion.
Speaker 1: I used to give him a feedback and he was
Speaker 1: always waiting for me, calling me up, discussing with leaves.
Speaker 1: Kashoki spent most of his career as a writer and
Speaker 1: editor for Amadina, one of the oldest and biggest newspapers
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. Koshogi had grown up among the social
Speaker 1: elite and considered himself a moderate, but over time he
Speaker 1: developed a reputation in the Middle East for speaking truth
Speaker 1: to power. Speaking out cost him several jobs. He was
Speaker 1: fired from Almadina for publishing pieces that were critical of
Speaker 1: the Saudi regime, supporting women's rights to drive, or blowing
Speaker 1: the whistle on corruption among the religious police. Kashogi then
Speaker 1: worked for Saudi ambassadors and diplomats, living between Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And Saudi Arabia. This way he was able to maintain
Speaker 1: his elite social status in the kingdom, and then in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, the Arab spring erupted across the Middle East.
Speaker 1: It's the first Arab revolution of the twenty first sent
Speaker 1: three or it will be precodet that people were fearless,
Speaker 1: but that they were joyous. Mbarak deposed egypt eighteen day
Speaker 1: revolution defies all expectations. Protesters across Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria,
Speaker 1: and Bahrain used social media to nize the masses and
Speaker 1: take to the streets. In turn, many leaders in the
Speaker 1: region began to heavily surveil social media in order to
Speaker 1: curtail public discourse and dissent. A new industry developed to
Speaker 1: keep up with government's demand to surveil the press was
Speaker 1: a major target. The Committee to Protect Journalists has reported
Speaker 1: that at the end of twenty twenty two, more than
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty journalists, which is a twenty percent
Speaker 1: increase over twenty twenty one around the world are currently imprisoned,
Speaker 1: either charged with crimes against the state like treason, or
Speaker 1: their paper of record charged with libel, or even a
Speaker 1: personal matter exposed if illegal in their country, like committing adultery.
Speaker 1: Journalism such a critical component at the outset of the
Speaker 1: Arab Spring, has become one of its long term casuals.
Speaker 1: For the very first time, a lot of the main
Speaker 1: television channels in Egypt are directly owned by the Egyptian military.
Speaker 1: This is new. You only need to target a handful
Speaker 1: of journalists before the rest of them are in line.
Speaker 1: Enjoying the episode, make sure to subscribe to Shoot the
Speaker 1: Messenger Espionage, Murder and Pegasus spyware. You can find exiles
Speaker 1: Shoot the Messenger anywhere you get your podcasts. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: get back to the episode. Following the Arab Spring, in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, authorities across North Africa and the Middle East
Speaker 1: increased online censorship and took over broadcast networks and media companies.
Speaker 1: Revolution did not come to Saudi Arabia, but in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia got a new leader. Now, at thirty one,
Speaker 1: an astonishing rise to power appears complete. They call him MBS.
Speaker 1: He's young, popular and promising more change than his country's
Speaker 1: ever seen. The Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, commonly referred
Speaker 1: to as MBS, initially spoke of reforms. He allowed women
Speaker 1: to drive and attend sporting events. But while MBS endorsed
Speaker 1: some social reform, he crushed any type of political reform
Speaker 1: or opposition. Here is a clip of Jamalka Shogi commenting
Speaker 1: on the new leadership, taken from an interview he did
Speaker 1: with Global News. I have mixed feelings about that. I'm
Speaker 1: very much supportive for his reform but his social reforms,
Speaker 1: But at the same time I repeatedly say he doesn't
Speaker 1: need to disintimidation. Muhammad bin Samon took the new social
Speaker 1: media playbook to a new level in Saudi Arabia. He
Speaker 1: worked closely with authorities to watch, target and silence any opposition,
Speaker 1: either discrediting opponents and complex media campaigns or arresting them
Speaker 1: and sometimes their family members as well. Kashoki's friends advised
Speaker 1: him to be careful. It was sad to me, but
Speaker 1: it is noted that right time to shave MBS and
Speaker 1: his media is our singled out independent journalists after Koshogi
Speaker 1: openly questioned the Saudi regime support for the newly elected
Speaker 1: American President Donald Trump on Twitter, authorities told Koshogi to
Speaker 1: stay offline in two thousand and sixteen because he stid
Speaker 1: a negative opinion about electing Prisidan Donald Trump. The Saudi
Speaker 1: authority did most like he speaking frankly and ask him
Speaker 1: to sit down at home not to write anything. Most
Speaker 1: to Abeer almost under house arrested in the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, Jama Kashogi decided it was time to leave
Speaker 1: his home country of Saudi Arabia. What iver ner space
Speaker 1: I had was getting nerwer, So I just decided to
Speaker 1: leave before it is to day. I'm sixty years old
Speaker 1: and I want to enjoy life, and they want to
Speaker 1: be three to speak for my country. Koshogi continued his reporting,
Speaker 1: but he never considered himself a dissident. Jammal did not
Speaker 1: leave to criticize, only justa for Asiko criticize Jiammel was
Speaker 1: optimestic about future of his country. He loved his country,
Speaker 1: but he loved to be identified as in Saogia and Arabs.
Speaker 1: Kashogi went to DC and began writing op eds for
Speaker 1: The Washington Post. Kashogi put more than six thousand miles
Speaker 1: between himself and the Crown Prince and thought he would
Speaker 1: start a new chapter, one where he could be free
Speaker 1: to speak his mind. Hanan allowed her remembers the day
Speaker 1: Kashogi arrived in the United States. I was in London
Speaker 1: in this day, operating my flies. Immediately I called to him,
Speaker 1: so shaken him. I was so happy, and I did
Speaker 1: tell him something and I believe in it. I said,
Speaker 1: make use of your freedom. Speak up, and Kashogi did
Speaker 1: speak up. He used his new platform in the United
Speaker 1: States to comment on his home country and Middle Eastern politics,
Speaker 1: and his first columns for The Washington Post, Kashogi wrote,
Speaker 1: quote Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince is acting like Putin, and
Speaker 1: quote Saudi Arabia wasn't always this repressive. Now it's unbearable.
Speaker 1: As Jamaka Shogi worked in exile, his fan base grew
Speaker 1: to over a million followers on Twitter. Saudi has an
Speaker 1: extremely active Twitter base. There's data showing that more than
Speaker 1: seventy percent of Saudi's are Twitter users. Even an ocean
Speaker 1: away from Saudi Arabia, Jamaka Shogi still knew he had
Speaker 1: to be cautious. He avoided going to Saudi embassies and
Speaker 1: would tell his fellow exiled friends to avoid them too,
Speaker 1: But he wasn't scared. As Hanan would describe, he was
Speaker 1: trying to be careful, but he wasn't scared for his life.
Speaker 1: He never come back home and the woods at Shane
Speaker 1: fifty chin in the door I used to do before
Speaker 1: we go to sleep. Kashogi got comfortable with his new
Speaker 1: life in exile, but he was homesick. He wanted to
Speaker 1: build a more permanent home and turned to Istanbul Turkey,
Speaker 1: a mix between East and West, closer to his home country,
Speaker 1: but what Kashogi considered a safe enough distance. We agree
Speaker 1: you have to buy a flesh in the Istanbul, to
Speaker 1: get a passport and to get a shelter from the
Speaker 1: Turkish authority. Moving a Turkey this is where things got
Speaker 1: a little more complicated. Well, Jamal's personal life was more
Speaker 1: complex than we knew before he died. He had two relationships.
Speaker 1: One was a longer relationship and he was married, and
Speaker 1: that was Hanan. And the second relationship that we knew
Speaker 1: more about was his recent fiance Hadijja in Turkey, so
Speaker 1: the two women did not know each other. During a
Speaker 1: trip to Istanbul, a friend entered Koshogi to a Turkish scholar,
Speaker 1: Hatija Sinez around the same time Kashogi married Hanan in
Speaker 1: a religious Muslim ceremony in Washington, d C. He began
Speaker 1: dating Hatijha and Istanbul and Hanan didn't know about Hadija,
Speaker 1: and Atisha didn't know about Hanan, and most people, honestly,
Speaker 1: even his good friends, did not know about Hanan. We're
Speaker 1: not here to focus on Kashogi's romantic endeavors. He's not
Speaker 1: here to explain himself to us or to the women
Speaker 1: in his life. But it's important to know because to
Speaker 1: understand how Koshogi died, we need to unpack the logistical
Speaker 1: details around the engagement to Turkish scholar Hatisha Singdez Because
Speaker 1: to get legally married in Turkey, Kashogi needed paperwork, and
Speaker 1: to get that paperwork, Kashogi had to go to the
Speaker 1: Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Friday September twenty eighth, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: Jamal Koshogi didn't make an appointment to visit the Saudi Consulate.
Speaker 1: He just walked in and to Koshogi's surprise, he was
Speaker 1: greeted warmly. After years of experiencing harassment and intimidation from
Speaker 1: the government, which had ultimately forced him to live in exile,
Speaker 1: Kashogi found himself being offered tea by the Saudi officials
Speaker 1: in Istanbul. They told him to come back Tuesday, October
Speaker 1: two to get the final paperwork. In the last five days,
Speaker 1: Kashogi was alive. He lived like a freeman. He traveled
Speaker 1: to London for a conference, made plans for the future.
Speaker 1: He was emailing his editors at the Washington Post, bloodsapping
Speaker 1: with friends across the world, texting with Hanan, and arranging
Speaker 1: logistics with Hatiche back in Istanbul the morning of Tuesday,
Speaker 1: October second, twenty eighteen, Koshogi met Hatija at an empty
Speaker 1: apartment in Istanbul, one that would be their new home.
Speaker 1: CCTV captured the couple holding hands on their walk to
Speaker 1: the Saudi consulate. They went together to the Port sult
Speaker 1: and it's in a quiet leafy very pretty residential area.
Speaker 1: This is Carlotta Gaul, the bureau chief of the New
Speaker 1: York Times in Istanbul, who reported on the Jamaica Shogi case.
Speaker 1: He handed her his bones and goes in, and so
Speaker 1: she waited outside. It was one fourteen pm when Kashogi
Speaker 1: entered the consulate, and then that was the last any
Speaker 1: one sour of him. And then she's hanging around for
Speaker 1: hours after until finally it's clear that consult's closed and
Speaker 1: she asks the god. They say there's no one here.
Speaker 1: She asks the police and they say everyone's gone. That's
Speaker 1: when she started, and it calls to people. Her teacher
Speaker 1: made many calls that night, including some to journalists, which
Speaker 1: is how Carlotta I got the tip that because Shogi
Speaker 1: had disappeared from the Saudi consulate. The next day, I
Speaker 1: went up the consulate and that's where I ran into
Speaker 1: her dj and she's sort of still there, pacing the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: and she'd been there all that previous night, and then
Speaker 1: was outstanding outside the whole the next day, and I
Speaker 1: was the first interview she gave. But she when she
Speaker 1: saw me, she just started to open up little Saudi
Speaker 1: dissidents who wouldn't go near a Saudi concert or embassy.
Speaker 1: I knew there were stories of previous kidnappings. I was
Speaker 1: thinking he might have been taken out in the trunk
Speaker 1: of a car, and I was imagining he had been
Speaker 1: taken to an airport, private airport and already deported or
Speaker 1: you know, renditioned, as the word goes, What happened? Security
Speaker 1: camera captured the last time journalist Jamaica Shogi was seen
Speaker 1: a lot. The group of senators is also written to
Speaker 1: trigger an investigation. The State Department says that is premature.
Speaker 1: Dana Priest remembers the day Jamaka Shogi went missing. My
Speaker 1: mind kept flashing back to the two of us. We
Speaker 1: were seated around this gigantic empty table, very beautiful white tent,
Speaker 1: white tablecloth. That face kept coming back to me, and
Speaker 1: I just kept saying, what in the hell could have
Speaker 1: happened in there? You know, in no way could I
Speaker 1: have imagined what was happening. M Yeah. No. As news
Speaker 1: of Kashogi's disappearance spread across the world, local reporters on
Speaker 1: the scene in Istanbul, including Carlotta Gaul, were working together
Speaker 1: to get more information, but none of us had any
Speaker 1: idea of what really had happened. We pieced together what happened,
Speaker 1: almost like who done it. For one week, Jamaka Shogi
Speaker 1: remained unaccounted for. The Saudi government evaded questions about his disappearance.
Speaker 1: It was as if he had vanished into thin air.
Speaker 1: And then Turkish intelligence released secret tapes. So we've been
Speaker 1: able to piece together the last minutes of Kashogi's life.
Speaker 1: Be warned, it's quite explicit. Major breaking news this morning,
Speaker 1: a jaw dropping exclusive on the murder of Washington Post
Speaker 1: journalist Jamaica Shogi. New footage that is flat out shocking.
Speaker 1: Buying in white inside was a Saudi hit squad. The
Speaker 1: transcript indicates noises as people set upon ki. Ki can
Speaker 1: be heard saying I can't breathe. Kashogi was then injected
Speaker 1: with a sedative and suffocated with a plastic band brought
Speaker 1: with them an autopsy's expert and a bone saw to
Speaker 1: put the buddy in a back no too heavy, very cool.
Speaker 1: Kashogi was allegedly beheaded and dismembered Limb by Limb, apparent
Speaker 1: leader of the team. At least three phone calls during
Speaker 1: the murder to a number Turkish officials identify it as
Speaker 1: being in the Saudi Royal Court. The thing is done.
Speaker 1: It's done. It is possible that Jamal's body was transported
Speaker 1: back on one of the planes. A lot of meat
Speaker 1: was bought for a barbecue that took place in the
Speaker 1: console's garden just after the murder took place, and that
Speaker 1: the theory being that Jamal's body was mixed with this
Speaker 1: meat and incinerated at a very high temperature. And it
Speaker 1: still kind of appalls me that we were standing there
Speaker 1: in the street outside this building where this unbelievable murder
Speaker 1: had already occurred, you know. And I still think of
Speaker 1: that of poor Hardig, to think that she was just
Speaker 1: standing there while he was being hacked to death inside.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure she still thinks of that every day.
Speaker 1: Koshoki's murder caused an international uproar. The grizzly details came
Speaker 1: out because Turkish intelligence admitted that they had been bugging
Speaker 1: the Saudi consulate. The Turk shared the tapes with the
Speaker 1: UN so the world would know what had happened to
Speaker 1: Jama Kashogi. Investigations by both the UN and the CIA
Speaker 1: unequivocally linked Koshogi's murder with direct orders from inside the
Speaker 1: Saudi Kingdom. We have breaking news this afternoon. Saudi Arabia's
Speaker 1: Crown Prince Mamad Been Saman approved the assassination of Washington
Speaker 1: Post columns Jamal Khogi in twenty eighteen. The report based
Speaker 1: in one of Kashogi's last columns for the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: He wrote, what the Arab world needs most is free expression.
Speaker 1: It has been four years since Kashogi's murder, and the
Speaker 1: link to the Crown Prince is just the tip of
Speaker 1: the iceberg. That's after the break or his murder, there
Speaker 1: were a number of roundups of Saudis whose numbers appeared
Speaker 1: in the phones of people who were around Jamal. But
Speaker 1: I believe the Saudis picked up and in this case
Speaker 1: detained for months and months people who were in contact
Speaker 1: with some of the people the Jamal's in contact with.
Speaker 1: So you're seeing this kind of ripple effect. You know,
Speaker 1: Jamal's in the middle, and then there's people who followed
Speaker 1: people who followed Jamal. What new evidence has revealed and
Speaker 1: what we are piecing together on this series is that
Speaker 1: Jamal Kashogi was being tracked more deliberately than anyone ever imagined.
Speaker 1: Several of the people that he was in touch with
Speaker 1: where surveyed by Pegasus. Pegasus has been linked to human
Speaker 1: rights abuses on ethical surveillance. The Pegasus spyware, made by
Speaker 1: Israeli company NSO Group, has been used to target journalist, dissidents,
Speaker 1: and activists around the Pegasus spyware it is the most
Speaker 1: sophisticated spyware made to date. It was created by an
Speaker 1: Israeli tech company. It's marketed to governments as a way
Speaker 1: to target, track and capture criminals and terrorists. But our
Speaker 1: investigation shows that many confirmed targets of Pegasus are not
Speaker 1: criminals or terrorists. The big question remains, did Jamal Kashogi
Speaker 1: have Pegasus on his phone? We may never be able
Speaker 1: to answer that question. Kashogi's phones are still with Turkish
Speaker 1: authorities more than four years after his death, but what
Speaker 1: we can do has examined the lives and the phones
Speaker 1: of those closest to him. We all obviously had an
Speaker 1: interest in knowing whether Pegasus was used in any way
Speaker 1: to surveil, track, and then aid the killers in murdering
Speaker 1: Jamal Kashogi. Dana Priest from the Washington Post, as one
Speaker 1: of dozens of journalists working on the Pegasus project, a
Speaker 1: coalition of journalists and activists that uncovers who has been
Speaker 1: infected with and surveilled by Pegasus, and together they found
Speaker 1: a list of confirmed cases, a list of phone numbers.
Speaker 1: Dana Priest was focused on finding out if any of
Speaker 1: them were connected to Jamal Kashogi. I drew a big
Speaker 1: circle of his friends and tried to get as many
Speaker 1: phone numbers that we could, and we found about ten people.
Speaker 1: And then a colleague of mine heard the post had
Speaker 1: was able to match a number that was in the
Speaker 1: database and was known to be associated with him, which
Speaker 1: was Hanan, a latter At that time, Hanan was really
Speaker 1: still in the background. Dana Priest learned about Hanana Lotter
Speaker 1: three years after the death of Kashogi. How could Hanan's
Speaker 1: experiences reveal new information about the plot to murder Jamal Kashogi.
Speaker 1: Let's rewind to five months before the murder of Jamaka
Speaker 1: Shogi April twenty eighteen. They took me to a horrible
Speaker 1: place in the border of Dubai called Alahweir. I didn't
Speaker 1: know where I am because they blinded me and they
Speaker 1: hadn't cuffed me. It was very high security place. I
Speaker 1: never seen it in my life, and they took sample
Speaker 1: from my DNA from my mouth. They take a photo
Speaker 1: for me from different angel. They take a finger brind
Speaker 1: and then they took me to this room for investigation.
Speaker 1: When Hanan was taken by Uia government officials, they were
Speaker 1: looking for something on Hannan's phone. During her interrogation, till
Speaker 1: this moment, I don't know why they taken me. I
Speaker 1: came to know why they took me because they have
Speaker 1: my phone with them in another room. They have my password,
Speaker 1: and he sent me a message and they came back
Speaker 1: to me and showed me and they said. In the
Speaker 1: middle of Hanan's interrogation, she received a text from Jamal Kashogi.
Speaker 1: The officials saw the text and their questions took a
Speaker 1: different turn. They asked about Koshogi's colleagues, his friends, his plans.
Speaker 1: They wanted to know what he was working on and
Speaker 1: who he was working with. This interrogation continued into the morning.
Speaker 1: After seventeen hours, she was given back her devices and
Speaker 1: taken home. They put me on the house arrist. They
Speaker 1: have my passport. They blacklisted me and my family. My
Speaker 1: entire family could don't to fly and after that I
Speaker 1: couldn't know how to communicate with him. Ammaradi officials. Detaining
Speaker 1: a flight attendant in what appears to be a favorite
Speaker 1: of the Saudi government is a critical moment. Hanan understood
Speaker 1: that this was a bold act, but didn't know what
Speaker 1: it all meant for her or for Kashogi. After she
Speaker 1: was detained, she did not tell Jamal right away. She
Speaker 1: didn't want to tell him on the phone. She didn't
Speaker 1: know who was listening to her, how they knew where
Speaker 1: they come and get her, and you know, so she
Speaker 1: was so afraid to talk to him and tell him
Speaker 1: what had happened. Hanan was under house arrest for several
Speaker 1: weeks after she was detained and interrogated by the Emiadi
Speaker 1: intelligence and could not meet Jama Kashogi as they had
Speaker 1: planned in Washington, d C. But she didn't know how
Speaker 1: to tell him what had happened. Jamal went to airport Washington,
Speaker 1: DC airport, was waiting for me in the airport. Suddenly
Speaker 1: he called me in Dubai. He told him, Hannan, I'm
Speaker 1: waiting for you an airport. Where are you? I said, Jamal,
Speaker 1: I'm not coming. He said why? I said so at
Speaker 1: Hustni just I told him a code to understand what
Speaker 1: is my situation. Hanan's code is the name of an
Speaker 1: Egyptian actress. Both Hanan and Kashogi shared a love for
Speaker 1: Egyptian cinema and are very familiar with the star Sua
Speaker 1: Husni You did eat. Swat Hosni is often called the
Speaker 1: Cinderella of Egyptian cinema. In two thousand and one, Swat
Speaker 1: Hosni fell from an apartment balcony in London and died.
Speaker 1: Many believed she had ties to Egyptian intelligence officials and
Speaker 1: that she was pushed from the balcony. Swat Hosni was
Speaker 1: Hanan's code word to indicate she didn't trust their line
Speaker 1: of communication. He said, so as he understood, He said,
Speaker 1: Hannah and us you I would protect you. They kept
Speaker 1: changing ways of communicating in an effort not to get surveiled.
Speaker 1: They used all sorts of things at different times so
Speaker 1: signal EMUs that a couple other things they came and went.
Speaker 1: After two months on house arrest, Hannan was released and
Speaker 1: got her passport back. She was back to work and
Speaker 1: went on a trip to the United States to meet Kashogi.
Speaker 1: They had plans to get married. We got to marriage
Speaker 1: in June twenty eighteen. They got married here in Washington,
Speaker 1: where Jamal had a house an apartment in McLean, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and they were married in Islamic ceremony only in part
Speaker 1: to protect her and all. They didn't want to have
Speaker 1: any record in the civil courts that she even existed
Speaker 1: here in the United States. Hanan Kashogi were married at
Speaker 1: a mosque, but they decided not to get a civil
Speaker 1: license as Hanan did not have residence in the US
Speaker 1: at the time. The summer of twenty eighteen, Hanan tried
Speaker 1: to put her detention behind her. She was cautious but
Speaker 1: not paranoid. You think they are watching us in a
Speaker 1: hotel lobby or in our room. But he didn't move
Speaker 1: when we was in our room. Jamal unblug the TV.
Speaker 1: This is what is the highest conscience for him about
Speaker 1: buying or watching or something. Once I remember he was
Speaker 1: trying to understood Ober in my Abu Bayel in case
Speaker 1: and in our house in Virginia, and he's Monzer and
Speaker 1: I need to go around for my shopping or something.
Speaker 1: He tried to install Uber and he was going to
Speaker 1: put his credit card number. Then he deleted and I
Speaker 1: said why deluted German. He said, no, if they gets
Speaker 1: the food from you in Dubai, Hanan, they can get
Speaker 1: get into my account. Hanan did not know what to
Speaker 1: do after Kashogi was murdered, and occasionally Amaradi intelligence officers
Speaker 1: would come by and ask questions. And then Jamal's killed
Speaker 1: and she has nowhere to go. She's trying for her life.
Speaker 1: She can't live in the UAE anymore. So she comes
Speaker 1: to the United States to talk to her lawyer, and
Speaker 1: her lawyers just stay here and we'll apply for political asylum.
Speaker 1: And so she is literally a forgotten woman. Here's this
Speaker 1: woman that has potentially so much evidence to share in
Speaker 1: her devices about Jamal's travels and who might have been
Speaker 1: tracking them, and who might have been complicit with the Saudis,
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out, you know, what his travel
Speaker 1: plans were, what his other plans were, what he was
Speaker 1: thinking of doing, and nobody had ever contacted her. So
Speaker 1: I took her devices to a second group that does
Speaker 1: a lot of forensics, Citizen Lab. So we worked with Bill.
Speaker 1: I'm Bill Marzac, a senior research fellow at the University
Speaker 1: of Toronto's Citizen Lab. I study government surveillance basically trying
Speaker 1: to determine which governments are hacking activists, dissidents, civil society,
Speaker 1: and trying to defend civil society against this hacking. Bill
Speaker 1: Marzac is one of the first people to discover Pegasus.
Speaker 1: He would need to look at Hanan's phone who in
Speaker 1: Idin approached from post They asking me to corporate the
Speaker 1: ex plan to me say needs my devices. I did
Speaker 1: hand it over. Bill has experienced reverse engineering Pegasus and
Speaker 1: knew exactly what to look for examining Hanan's phone. That's
Speaker 1: pretty much the only thing you can do when you
Speaker 1: get a sample of something that might be interesting spyware
Speaker 1: is you have to run it yourself and see what happens.
Speaker 1: And I was monitoring the phone's Internet traffic, so I
Speaker 1: was seeing everything that came into the phone that left
Speaker 1: the phone. When I was monitoring the Internet traffic, a
Speaker 1: bunch of weird traffic going to the spiral website like
Speaker 1: it was downloading stuff. It was uploading stuff, And that
Speaker 1: was sort of the first key that oh, wow, so
Speaker 1: far he's closed, but this connectivity is still happening and
Speaker 1: it's sending information back. Pegasus can bypass any encryption because
Speaker 1: it uses a loophole in a phone software to be
Speaker 1: an incognito but active parasite. When Pegasus is on a phone,
Speaker 1: bill can see the evidence of it right away. You
Speaker 1: can turn on the microphone to snoop in on conversations
Speaker 1: happening around the device. You can take pictures through the webcam.
Speaker 1: You can get passwords, you can get WhatsApp messages, you
Speaker 1: can get signal messages, you can record calls, you can
Speaker 1: track GPS, you can do other things with the phone sensors.
Speaker 1: It was full access to the phone, and there was
Speaker 1: something else they knew from the types of text messages
Speaker 1: she'd been sent, which had already been identified as Pegasus bait,
Speaker 1: that they had tried to target her several times. So
Speaker 1: why did the Emeraldi intelligence officers detain Hanan a ladder
Speaker 1: and question her overnight. It turns out they had been
Speaker 1: trying to trick Hanan into downloading Pegasus herself. She had
Speaker 1: received random texts in the months prior to her detention,
Speaker 1: but she never clicked on the links. The bait to
Speaker 1: get Hanan to infect her phone in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: team were things like you have a package downtown and
Speaker 1: this address, click here and tell us that you want
Speaker 1: us to send it to you. There was a message
Speaker 1: from her sister saying, oh, here's a photo. Click this
Speaker 1: to see the photo. And then there was one saying
Speaker 1: you have a bouquet of flowers waiting for you. Click
Speaker 1: this and we will get them to you. Then Dana
Speaker 1: Priest had to tell hann the truth that she had
Speaker 1: spywear on her phone, and that she'd had it since
Speaker 1: April twenty eighteen, since the day she had been detained.
Speaker 1: When I recall the moment, this habn't I shook, and
Speaker 1: I feel like my life was in a screen affronto
Speaker 1: of zim. I'm talking about the people who misuse this technology,
Speaker 1: that be able who hummed my husband and hummed Gni.
Speaker 1: The Amaradi intelligence officials had full access to Hanan's phone
Speaker 1: every part of her life for five months before Koshogi
Speaker 1: was killed. No matter the steps Hanan had taken, the
Speaker 1: codes she had used, or the length she had gone
Speaker 1: to protect Koshogi, they could still watch her and they did.
Speaker 1: I was feeling very bad, and I was still feeling
Speaker 1: very bad. Hanan is still trying to get Kashogi's devices
Speaker 1: from the Turkish authorities. In addition to Hanana Lader. Others
Speaker 1: close to Jamal Kashogi have also discovered Pegasus on their phones.
Speaker 1: Every detail of their digital footprint was surveiled, including Kashogi's
Speaker 1: Turkish fiance hangs I Blamed myself a lot, and Kashogi's
Speaker 1: close friend Omar Abdullah Ziz, a fellow outspoken Saudi journalist
Speaker 1: living in exile in Canada. All of their correspondences were monitored.
Speaker 1: The hacken of my phone played a major role. What
Speaker 1: happened to Jaman that It's On the next episode of
Speaker 1: Shoot the Messenger, we find out how Omar Abduaziz found
Speaker 1: out he was being hacked and discovered more than four
Speaker 1: hundred of his text messages with Jamaka Shogi were compromised.
Speaker 1: We'll go into how this technology works and how Pegasus
Speaker 1: was first discovered. On this series, we investigate how Pegasus
Speaker 1: spyware came to be, what its capabilities are, and ask
Speaker 1: how does it implicate ordinary people. Over the next nine
Speaker 1: episodes will follow the thread of Pegasus to understand how
Speaker 1: it was intended to be used, how it's abused, and
Speaker 1: the impact of its surveillance. Pegasus spyware has been a
Speaker 1: boom for the cyber surveillance industry, and it's impacted the
Speaker 1: global economy. If you live in the US and have
Speaker 1: mutual funds or pension, your money could be supporting the
Speaker 1: organization that makes Pegasus spyware. You've heard about Jamaalka Shogi,
Speaker 1: but there are so many others others who have been
Speaker 1: targeted and hacked, blackmailed or humiliated, who have been hunted
Speaker 1: and killed. Some of the names you may recognize, like
Speaker 1: Emmanuel mccron, the president of France, or Jeff Bezos, the
Speaker 1: founder of Amazon, and then there are stories you haven't
Speaker 1: heard about. I don't love or felt safe. Do you
Speaker 1: know if they got the information that they were looking for.
Speaker 1: I don't think they were looking for any information. I
Speaker 1: think it was a form of psychological warfare. I would
Speaker 1: get a phone call from someone they did you never
Speaker 1: anyone on the end of the phone. They would try
Speaker 1: to track my GPS. It don't seem like it's always
Speaker 1: your favorite people who are being hacked and followed. We
Speaker 1: have to be way more careful even about things like this.
Speaker 1: How do I know who you are? It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the nuclear era before there were nuclear arms treaties.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that you think these texts I'm getting
Speaker 1: are Pegasus? Do you think I'm being targeted? Oh? For sure,
Speaker 1: Valley don't makes sense. It's on season one of Shoot
Speaker 1: the Messenger. Shoot the Messenger is a production of Exile
Speaker 1: Content Studio. We are distributed by PRX, Hosted and produced
Speaker 1: by Me rose Red with Nando Villa, Sabine Jansen, Nora Kipness,
Speaker 1: Zak Hirsch, and Anna Isabel Octavio. Written by Me rose Red,
Speaker 1: with story editing by Nando Villa, Danny Sadia, Jen Atschell,
Speaker 1: zak Hirsch, and Rachel Ward. Production assistants by Avro Saspeedis,
Speaker 1: Andrea Zavaios, Jen Shipman, Stella Emmett and Aaron Reese. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Sonic Union and Gail and Matthew Reid. Sound
Speaker 1: design and mixing by Patti Kenyones Daniel Batista. Overseas audio
Speaker 1: at Exile Content Studio. Executive producers are myself rose Red
Speaker 1: with Nando Villa, Carmen Gradol and Isaac Lead. For more
Speaker 1: information on the status of journal US and freedom of
Speaker 1: the press, visit the Committee to Protect Journalists at CpG
Speaker 1: dot org. To learn more about Exile and our other
Speaker 1: podcasts and films. Visit exile content dot com. The next
Speaker 1: episode is out now. Subscribe so you can hear every
Speaker 1: twist and turn of this ten part series. You can
Speaker 1: find Exiles, Shoot the Messenger, Espionage Murder, and Pegasus Spyware
Speaker 1: anywhere you get your podcasts