Speaker 1: Hey, they're Sacred Scandal listeners. I'm Nando Vila. We're taking
Speaker 1: over 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. An
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 ap when Hanan, a latter, landed
Speaker 1: in her hometown of Dubai. After twenty two years as
Speaker 1: a flight attendant with Emirates Airlines, the routine had long
Speaker 1: turned to muscle memory. On this Saturday night, Hanan had
Speaker 1: just finished a long flight from Toronto. Her shift was
Speaker 1: over and she was tired and ready to go home.
Speaker 1: Hanan would have been wearing the standard Amarani uniform, a
Speaker 1: fitted cream colored blazer with red piping with signature red
Speaker 1: pill box hat. And this is where I like to
Speaker 1: imagine Hanan and red pumps clacking along in the manner
Speaker 1: which is distinctive to crew and pilots no matter how
Speaker 1: often you fly, pulling a black roll away behind her,
Speaker 1: always black, and maybe she had one of those squarish
Speaker 1: topebags trapped on top of her roll away. Hannan had
Speaker 1: deboarded a plane, exited the gate area, and walked through
Speaker 1: immigration at Dubai's International Airport thousands of times, but this
Speaker 1: time something was different. And this immigration people they know
Speaker 1: me by name. He normally took my passport to speak
Speaker 1: to me about my flight, but in this case, he
Speaker 1: said Hannan within the side. The system is down and
Speaker 1: I feel there is something wrong. Hannan rushed into a
Speaker 1: nearby bathroom and locked herself in install She called the
Speaker 1: person she always called once she landed at home, her sister,
Speaker 1: and I told you, my sister, there's something go and
Speaker 1: go on. Hanan had a terrible feeling that the Emiadi
Speaker 1: men hanging around immigration had something to do with her fiance.
Speaker 1: Her fiance was a journalist known for speaking out on
Speaker 1: human rights, and in the UAE, loudly defending human rights
Speaker 1: could get you detained or even jailed. Hanan's fiance had
Speaker 1: already told her he worried about the way his work
Speaker 1: would impact her life. He gave me the engagement drink,
Speaker 1: and when he put the rink in my hand, he said,
Speaker 1: Hannan and his kids, I might be a curse in
Speaker 1: new life. I might create a problem for you. Hanan
Speaker 1: wasn't involved in politics, She hadn't had any run ins
Speaker 1: with the police. But sitting in that bathroom stall in
Speaker 1: 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 Emirati intelligence officers.
Speaker 1: One of the member woke was us quietly and the
Speaker 1: behavior shift. I realized you just have to comply with Jim.
Speaker 1: Hanan was unhandcuffed, blindfolded, put in a car, and taken
Speaker 1: to an interrogation cell. I cannot express to you what
Speaker 1: is my feeling is this time the band in my
Speaker 1: stomach from the bannock. The intelligence officers demanded she hand
Speaker 1: over all of her devices, a laptop and two Android phones,
Speaker 1: and that to share her passwords. She was taken to
Speaker 1: a remote location where she was questioned overnight and into
Speaker 1: the morning. Seventeen hours later, the intelligence officers returned Hanan's
Speaker 1: devices and took her home. Hanan wanted to resume the
Speaker 1: life she had built for herself, leading a cabin crew
Speaker 1: across trans atlantic flights, traveling and visiting family. She looked
Speaker 1: forward to her wedding ceremony in Washington, d C. Just
Speaker 1: 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 Emirati 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 Amiradi 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 spy where
Speaker 1: had unknowingly turned her into an informant, providing a direct
Speaker 1: window to the person she cared about. Most fears are
Speaker 1: growing over the fate of missing Saudi journalist Jamaka, who
Speaker 1: vanished after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Restrountable details
Speaker 1: are pouring in about the likely death of this Washington
Speaker 1: Post columnist because and they are just simply horrified. Jamal
Speaker 1: Kashogi Hannan's newly what husband, the Saudi journalist who had
Speaker 1: been living in Washington, d C. In South exile writing
Speaker 1: op eds for the Washington Post, was assassinated just months
Speaker 1: after her detention. We never thought me under Jomal, they
Speaker 1: will be extremists to their level to kill him, and
Speaker 1: this terrible way. When Kashoki disappeared from the Saudi consulate
Speaker 1: in it would be weeks before the world learned what
Speaker 1: occurred in his final hours. But it's taken years for
Speaker 1: us to learn he wasn't just killed, he was systematically
Speaker 1: hunted in a way we have never seen before. And
Speaker 1: what we now know is that the first weapon used
Speaker 1: against Kashogi was digital and it's called Pegasus. Pegasus is
Speaker 1: probably the most advanced piece of spy where it is
Speaker 1: effectively the most invasive form of surveillance imaginable licenses this
Speaker 1: software to intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Worldwime tool can
Speaker 1: also be deployed by a government to crush descent. Pecasus
Speaker 1: is a kind of software that can be used to
Speaker 1: hijack your phone. It's a military grade spying software. It's
Speaker 1: this magic thing. It can infect your phone, and once
Speaker 1: it does, it's inside of your phone and it's like
Speaker 1: a little worm and it can burrow into every piece
Speaker 1: of equipment in your phone. This is Dana Priest. She
Speaker 1: covers national security for the Washington Post, the same newspaper
Speaker 1: as Jamal Kashogi. It can turn the microphone on, it
Speaker 1: can turn the camera on. It can go into all
Speaker 1: of your photos, all of your emails, even your deleted messages,
Speaker 1: and scoop them up and take them somewhere seven and
Speaker 1: you'll never know it. You'll never know it. Pegasus implicates
Speaker 1: several countries and multiple government agencies. And unites unlikely allies.
Speaker 1: It's part of a massive and mostly unregulated, multibillion dollar
Speaker 1: global industry. Battlefields aren't physical anymore. They aren't far away
Speaker 1: across oceans or borders. They're in our pocket. And the
Speaker 1: threats that journalists face as they seek out and reveal
Speaker 1: uncomfortable truths are threats that we are all vulnerable to,
Speaker 1: no matter where we live, who we know, and what
Speaker 1: we do. Jamaica Showgi's assassination reveals that journalists are the
Speaker 1: canaries in the coal mine these days. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be a high profile journalists or a dissident or
Speaker 1: a famous truth teller to get swept up. If you've
Speaker 1: ever had a phone, if you've ever had a secret,
Speaker 1: you're at risk too. I'm Nando Vila and I'm Rose
Speaker 1: Reed and this is Shoot the Messenger, a new investigative
Speaker 1: reporting podcast from Exile Content Studio. Every season, we investigate
Speaker 1: one international news story. You may have heard the headlines.
Speaker 1: This is the deep dive. Nando and I started the
Speaker 1: series with one question, what is the biggest threat to
Speaker 1: journalists today? We put up a bulletin board and stuck
Speaker 1: a pen for every journalist who was threatened or assassinated,
Speaker 1: or if they had a family member who was threatened
Speaker 1: or assassinated directly because of their work in the last
Speaker 1: five years, and we found one link that kept coming
Speaker 1: up again and again from Mexico to d C to
Speaker 1: the United Arab Emirates Pegasus. How did this spyware come
Speaker 1: to be? How does it work? And how vulnerable are you?
Speaker 1: Over the course of ten episodes, we're doing a special
Speaker 1: partnership with the Committee to Protect Journalists on espionage, murder
Speaker 1: and Pegasus spyware put in the hell could have happened
Speaker 1: in there? Which he's together what happened? Almost like who
Speaker 1: done it? Given one instance of an attack, can we
Speaker 1: trace that to other instances in other countries as well?
Speaker 1: Regarding the spying and the Bagatis, we did not know
Speaker 1: they did drag through me because they do and the
Speaker 1: closest to hunt him they started with me. Episode one
Speaker 1: Jamaica Shogi, a story told in three parts his life,
Speaker 1: death and betrayal. Jamal was a great man as a
Speaker 1: journalist and as a husband. Hanana latter first met Jamalka
Speaker 1: Shogi at a conference in two thousand and nine. Jamal
Speaker 1: is a kind of person we can say is not
Speaker 1: in the right or left. He's in the middle in
Speaker 1: his opinion and his vision because he's very open minded.
Speaker 1: Any bad ground can sit down with Jamal, any race,
Speaker 1: any doluji and do you have a different view home him?
Speaker 1: But you will walk away with a smile. Nana Kashoki
Speaker 1: captain touch and they are friends for almost a decade
Speaker 1: before their romance began. I met Jamal first time with
Speaker 1: was a nine in Dubai where I grown up and
Speaker 1: I remember very well. We had a conversation over two hours.
Speaker 1: He was talking about the Middle East politics and form
Speaker 1: policy of US toward the Middle East, and we realize
Speaker 1: we are like a twin and we continue. And I
Speaker 1: always used to give him a feedback in any article
Speaker 1: in the published opinion. I used to give him a
Speaker 1: feedback and he was always waiting for me, calling me up,
Speaker 1: discussing with me. Kahoki spent most of his career as
Speaker 1: a writer and editor for Amadina, one of the oldest
Speaker 1: and biggest newspapers in Saudi Arabia. Kashoki had grown up
Speaker 1: among a social elite and considered himself a moderate, but
Speaker 1: over time he developed a reputation in the Middle East
Speaker 1: for speaking truth to power. Speaking out cost him several jobs.
Speaker 1: He was fired from Almadina for publishing pieces that were
Speaker 1: critical of the Saudi regime, supporting women's rights to drive,
Speaker 1: or blowing the whistle on corruption among the religious police.
Speaker 1: Kaushoki then worked for Saudi ambassadors and diplomats, living between Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And Saudi Arabia. This way he was able
Speaker 1: to maintain his elite social status in the kingdom, and
Speaker 1: then in the Arab spring erupted across the Middle East.
Speaker 1: It's the first Arab revolution of three or it will
Speaker 1: be that people were fearless, but that they were joyous deposed.
Speaker 1: Egypt eighteen day revolution defies all expectations. Protesters across Tunisia, Libya, Egypt,
Speaker 1: Syria and Bahrain used social media to nice the masses
Speaker 1: and take to the streets. In turn, many leaders in
Speaker 1: the region began to heavily surveil social media in order
Speaker 1: to curtail public discourse and dissent. A new industry developed
Speaker 1: to keep up with government's demand to surveil. The press
Speaker 1: was a major target. The Committee to Protect Journalists has
Speaker 1: reported that at the end of more than three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty journalists, which is increase over around the world.
Speaker 1: Are currently imprisoned, either charged with crimes against the state
Speaker 1: like treason, or their paper of record charged with libel,
Speaker 1: or even a personal matter exposed if illegal in their country,
Speaker 1: like committing adultery. Journalism such a critical component at the
Speaker 1: outset of the Arab Spring has become one of its
Speaker 1: long term casual. For the very first time, a lot
Speaker 1: of the main television channels in Egypt are directly owned
Speaker 1: by the Egyptian military. This is new. You only need
Speaker 1: to target a handful of journalists before the rest of
Speaker 1: them are in line. Enjoying the episode, make sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe to Shoot the Messenger Espionage Murder and Pegasus spyware.
Speaker 1: You can find exiles Shoot the Messenger anywhere you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Okay, let's get back to the episode. Following
Speaker 1: the Arab Spring in two thousand and eleven, authorities across
Speaker 1: North Africa and the Middle East increased online censorship and
Speaker 1: took over broadcast networks and media companies. Revolution did not
Speaker 1: come to Saudi Arabia, but in Saudi Arabia got a
Speaker 1: new leader, now a thirty one, an astonishing rights to
Speaker 1: power appears complete. They call him MBS. He's young, popular
Speaker 1: and promising more change than these country's ever seen. The
Speaker 1: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, commonly referred to as MBS,
Speaker 1: initially spoke of reforms. He allowed women to drive and
Speaker 1: attend sporting events. But while MBS endorsed some social reform,
Speaker 1: he crushed any type of political reform or opposition. Here's
Speaker 1: a clip of Jamal ka Shogi commenting on the new leadership,
Speaker 1: taken from an interview he did with Global News. I
Speaker 1: have fixed freelings about that. I'm very much supportive for
Speaker 1: his reform, for his social reform, but in the same
Speaker 1: time I immediately say he doesn't need to disintimidation. Mohammed
Speaker 1: bin Samon took the new social media playbook to a
Speaker 1: new level in Saudi Arabia. He worked closely with authorities
Speaker 1: to watch, target and silence any opposition, either discrediting opponents
Speaker 1: and complex media campaigns or arresting them and sometimes their
Speaker 1: family members as well. Kahoki's friends advised him to be careful.
Speaker 1: It was sad to me, but it is not that
Speaker 1: I time to shave MBS and his media is our
Speaker 1: singled out independent journalists after Koshogi openly questioned the Saudi
Speaker 1: regime support for the newly elected American President Donald Trump
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Authorities told Koshogi to stay offline in two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen because he said a negative opinion about electing
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump. The Saudi authority did most like he
Speaker 1: speaking frankly and ask him to sit down at home,
Speaker 1: not to write anything. Most to a bear almost under
Speaker 1: house arrested in the summer of two thousand seventeen, Jamak
Speaker 1: Kashogi decided it was time to leave his home country
Speaker 1: of Saudi Arabia. What iver ner space I had was
Speaker 1: getting nerwer So I just decided to leave before I
Speaker 1: just do it. Sixty years old and they want to
Speaker 1: enjoy life and they want to be three to speak
Speaker 1: for my country. Kashoki continued his reporting, but he never
Speaker 1: considered himself a dissident. Jammal did not leave to criticize,
Speaker 1: only just for a sick of criticize. Jam l was
Speaker 1: of domestic about future of his country. He loved his country,
Speaker 1: but he loved to be identified as in Saogia and Arabs.
Speaker 1: Kashoki went to d C and began writing Our Beds
Speaker 1: for the Washington Post. Kashogi put more than six thousand
Speaker 1: miles between himself and the Crown Prince, and thought he
Speaker 1: would start a new chapter, one where he could be
Speaker 1: free to speak his mind. Hanan allowed her remembers the
Speaker 1: day Kaushoki arrived in the United States. I was in
Speaker 1: London in this day, operating my flights. Immediately I called
Speaker 1: to him to chicken him. I was so happy, and
Speaker 1: I did tell him something and I believe in it.
Speaker 1: I said, make use of your freedom. Speak up, And
Speaker 1: Kashoki did speak up. He used his new platform in
Speaker 1: the United States to comment on his home country and
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern politics, and his first columns for The Washington Post,
Speaker 1: Kashogi wrote, quote Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince is acting like Putin,
Speaker 1: and 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 of Saudis are Twitter users. Even in ocean away
Speaker 1: from Saudi Arabia Jamaica, Shogi still knew he had to
Speaker 1: be cautious. He avoided going to Saudi embassies and would
Speaker 1: tell his fellow exiled friends to avoid them too, But
Speaker 1: he wasn't scared. As Hanan would describe, he was trying
Speaker 1: to be careful, but he wasn't scared for his life.
Speaker 1: He never come back home and the books that change
Speaker 1: fifty chin in the door I used to do before
Speaker 1: we go to sleep. Kashoki 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 fleft in the stumble, 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 Hatija in Turkey, so
Speaker 1: the two women did not know each other. During a
Speaker 1: trip to Istanbul, a friend entroduce Koshogi to a Turkish scholar,
Speaker 1: Hatija Sindas. Around the same time, Kashoki married Hanan in
Speaker 1: a religious Muslim ceremony and Washington d c he began
Speaker 1: dating Hatija 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 Koshogi'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 Koshoki died, we need to unpack the logistical
Speaker 1: details around the engagement to Turkish scholar Hatija Sindas because
Speaker 1: to get legally married in Turkey, Kashogi needed paperwork, and
Speaker 1: to get that paperwork, Kashoki had to go to the
Speaker 1: Saudi consulate in Istanbul. On Friday, septem eighteen, Jamal Ko
Speaker 1: Shogi didn't make an appointment to visit the Saudi consulate.
Speaker 1: He just walked in and to kashogi 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: Kaushogi 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 Hatch back in Istanbul. The morning of Tuesday
Speaker 1: October two, two eighteen, Kashogi met Hatija at an empty
Speaker 1: apart minut in his temple one that would be their
Speaker 1: new home. CCTV captured the couple holding hands on their
Speaker 1: walk to the Saudi consulate. They went together to the
Speaker 1: points to look and it's in a quiet, leafy, very
Speaker 1: pretty residential area. This is Carlotta Golf, the bureau chief
Speaker 1: of the New York Times in is Stumble who reported
Speaker 1: on the Jamaica Shogi case. He handed her his bones
Speaker 1: and goes in, and so she waited outside. It was
Speaker 1: one four pm when Kashogi entered the consulate and then
Speaker 1: that was the last, only one sort of thing um,
Speaker 1: and then she's hanging around for hours after until finally
Speaker 1: it's clear that concerts closed and she asks the god.
Speaker 1: They say there's no one here. She asks the police
Speaker 1: and they say everyone's gone. And that's when she started
Speaker 1: and it calls to people. Her teacher made many calls
Speaker 1: that night, including some to journalists, which is how Carlotta
Speaker 1: got the tip. Because Shogi had disappeared from the Saudi consulate.
Speaker 1: The next day, I went up to consulate and that's
Speaker 1: where I ran into her teacha and she was sort
Speaker 1: of still there, pacing sidewalk, and she'd been there all
Speaker 1: that previous night, and then um was outstanding outside the
Speaker 1: whole one next day, and I was the first interview
Speaker 1: she gave in. But actually when she saw me, she
Speaker 1: just started to open up the society dissidents who wouldn't
Speaker 1: go near a Saudi concert or embassy. I knew there
Speaker 1: were stories of previous kidnappings. I was thinking he might
Speaker 1: have been taken out in the trunk of a car,
Speaker 1: and I was imagining she had been taken to an airport,
Speaker 1: private airport, and already deport or renditioned as the word
Speaker 1: goes what happened from Jamaica security camera captured the last
Speaker 1: time journalist Jamaica Shogi was seen a lot. The group
Speaker 1: of senators is also written to trigger an investigation. The
Speaker 1: State Department says that is premature. Dana Priest remembers the
Speaker 1: day Jamaka Shogi went missing. My mind kept flashing back
Speaker 1: to the two of us. We were seated around this
Speaker 1: gigantic empty table, very beautiful white tent, white tablecloth. That
Speaker 1: face kept coming back to me, and I just kept saying,
Speaker 1: what in the hell could have happened in there? You know,
Speaker 1: in no way could I have imagined what was happening.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm yeah. As news of Kashogi's disappearance spread across
Speaker 1: the world, local reporters on the scene in Istanbul, including
Speaker 1: Carlotta Gal, We're working together to get more information, but
Speaker 1: none of us had any idea of what really had happened.
Speaker 1: We pieced together what happened, almost like who done it?
Speaker 1: For one week, Jamaka Shogi remained unaccounted for, the Saudi
Speaker 1: government evaded questions about his disappearance. It was as if
Speaker 1: he had vanished into thin air. And then Turkish intelligence
Speaker 1: released secret tapes. So We've been able to piece together
Speaker 1: the last minutes of Kashogi's life. Be warned, it's quite explicit.
Speaker 1: Major breaking news this morning, A jaw dropping exclusive on
Speaker 1: the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamaka Shogi. New footage
Speaker 1: that is flat out shocking. Lying in white inside was
Speaker 1: a Saudi hit squad. The transcript indicates noises as people
Speaker 1: set upon KOI can be heard saying I can't breathe.
Speaker 1: Kashogi was then injected with a sedative and suffocated with
Speaker 1: a plastic bag brought with them an autopsies expert and
Speaker 1: a bone sawed to put the body in a bug
Speaker 1: no too heavy, very cool. Kagi was allegedly beheaded and
Speaker 1: dismembered limb by Limb, apparent leader of the team. May
Speaker 1: at least three phone calls during the murder to a
Speaker 1: number of Turkish officials identify as being in the Saudi
Speaker 1: Royal court. The thing is done, It's done. It is
Speaker 1: possible that Jamal's body was transported back on on one
Speaker 1: of the planes. A lot of meat was bought for
Speaker 1: a barbecue that took place in the console's garden just
Speaker 1: after the murder took place, and that the theory being
Speaker 1: that Jamal's body was mixed with this meat and incinerated
Speaker 1: at a very high temperature. And it's still kind of
Speaker 1: appalls me that we were standing there in the street
Speaker 1: outside this building where this unbelievable murder had already occurred,
Speaker 1: you know. And I still think of that of Paul
Speaker 1: her dj to think that she was just standing there
Speaker 1: while he was being hacked to death inside. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure she's still thinks about every day. Koshoki's murder caused
Speaker 1: an international uproar. The grizzly details came out because Turkish
Speaker 1: intelligence admitted that they had been bugging the Saudi consulate.
Speaker 1: The Turk shared the tapes with the u N so
Speaker 1: the world would know what had happened to Jamal ka Shogi.
Speaker 1: Investigations by both the u N and the CIA unequivocally
Speaker 1: linked Kashoki's murder with direct orders from inside the Saudi Kingdom.
Speaker 1: We have breaking news this afternoon. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince
Speaker 1: Mommed Bin Salman approved the assassination of Washington Post columns
Speaker 1: Jamal ka In. In one of Kashi's last columns for
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, he wrote, what the Arab world needs
Speaker 1: most is free expression. It has been four years since
Speaker 1: Kashoki's murder, and the link to the Crown Prince is
Speaker 1: just the tip of the iceberg. That's after the break
Speaker 1: after or his murder, there were a number of roundups
Speaker 1: of Saudis whose numbers appeared in the phones of people
Speaker 1: who were around Jamal. But I believe the Saudis picked
Speaker 1: up and in this case detained for months and months
Speaker 1: people who were in contact with some of the people
Speaker 1: the Jamals in contact with. So you're seeing this kind
Speaker 1: of ripple effect. You know, Jamal's in the middle, and
Speaker 1: then there's people who followed people who followed Jamal. What
Speaker 1: new evidence has revealed and what we are piecing together
Speaker 1: on this series is that Jamal ka Shogi was being
Speaker 1: tracked more deliberately than anyone ever imagined. Several of the
Speaker 1: people that he was in touching where surveyed by Pegasus.
Speaker 1: Pegasus has been linked to human rights abuses on ethical surveillance.
Speaker 1: The Pegasus spy where made by Israeli company and s
Speaker 1: O Group, has been used to target journalist, dissidents, and
Speaker 1: activists around The Pegasus spyware it is the most sophisticated
Speaker 1: spyware made to date. It was created by an Israeli
Speaker 1: tech company. It's marketed to governments as a way to target,
Speaker 1: track and capture criminals and terrorists. But our investigation shows
Speaker 1: that many confirmed targets of Pegasus are not criminals or terrorists.
Speaker 1: The big question remains, did Jamal ka Shogi have Pegasus
Speaker 1: on his phone? We may never be able to answer
Speaker 1: that questions phones are still with Turkish authorities more than
Speaker 1: four years after his death, but what we can do
Speaker 1: is examined the lives and the phones of those closest
Speaker 1: to him. We all obviously had an interest in knowing
Speaker 1: whether Pegasus was used in any way to surveil, track
Speaker 1: and then aid the killers in murdering Jamal ka Shogi.
Speaker 1: Dana Priest from the Washington Post as one of dozens
Speaker 1: of journalists working on the Pegasus project, a coalition of
Speaker 1: journalists and activist that uncovers who has been infected with
Speaker 1: and surveilled by Pegasus, and together they found a list
Speaker 1: of confirmed cases, a list of phone numbers. Danna Priest
Speaker 1: was focused on finding out if any of them were
Speaker 1: connected to Jamal Kashogi. I drew a big circle of
Speaker 1: his friends and tried to get as many phone numbers
Speaker 1: that we could and we found about ten people. And
Speaker 1: then a colleague of mine uh here at the post
Speaker 1: had was able to match a number that was in
Speaker 1: the database and was known to be associated with him,
Speaker 1: which was Hanan a Lotter. At that time, Hanan was
Speaker 1: really still in the background. Dana priests learned about Hanana
Speaker 1: Lotter three years after the death of Kashogi. How could
Speaker 1: Hanan's experiences reveal new information about the plot to murder
Speaker 1: Jamal Kashogi. Let's rewind to five months before the murder
Speaker 1: of Jamaica Shogy April. They took me to a horrible
Speaker 1: place in the border of Dubai called Allawire. I didn't
Speaker 1: know where I am because they blinded me and they
Speaker 1: han'dcuffed me. It was very high security place. I've never
Speaker 1: seen it in my life. And they took sample from
Speaker 1: my d n A from my mouth, They take a
Speaker 1: photo for me from different angle, They take a finger
Speaker 1: brand and then they took me to this room for investigation.
Speaker 1: When Hannan was taken by ui A government officials, they
Speaker 1: were looking for something on Hanan's phone during her interrogation.
Speaker 1: Till this moment, I don't know why they've taken me.
Speaker 1: I came to know why they took me because they
Speaker 1: have my phone with them in another room. They have
Speaker 1: my password, and he sent me a message and they
Speaker 1: came back to me and showed me and they said.
Speaker 1: In the middle of Hanan's interrogation, she received a text
Speaker 1: from Jama Kashogi. The officials saw the text and their
Speaker 1: questions took a different turn. They asked about Koshoki's colleagues,
Speaker 1: his friends, his plans. They wanted to know what he
Speaker 1: was working on and who he was working with. This
Speaker 1: interrogation continued into the morning. After seventeen hours, she was
Speaker 1: given back her devices and taken home. They put me
Speaker 1: on the house arrisk. They have my boss porst. They
Speaker 1: belectlisted me and my family. My entire family could don't fly,
Speaker 1: and after that I couldn't know how to communicate with him.
Speaker 1: Amarati officials. Detaining a flight attendant in what appears to
Speaker 1: be a favorite of the Saudi government is a critical moment.
Speaker 1: Hanan understood that this was a bold act, but didn't
Speaker 1: know what it all meant for her or for Kashogi.
Speaker 1: After she was detained, she did not tell Jamal right away.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to tell him on the phone, but
Speaker 1: she didn't know who was listening to her, how they
Speaker 1: knew where to come and get her, and you know,
Speaker 1: so she was so afraid to talk to him and
Speaker 1: tell him what had happened. Hanan was under house arrest
Speaker 1: for several weeks after she was detained and interrogated by
Speaker 1: the Emeraldi intelligence and could not meet Jamal ka Shogi
Speaker 1: as they had planned in Washington, d C. But she
Speaker 1: didn't know how to tell him what had happened. Jamal
Speaker 1: went to airport Washington, DC airport was waiting for me
Speaker 1: in the airport. Suddenly he called me in Dubai. He
Speaker 1: told me, Hannan, I'm waiting for you and airport where
Speaker 1: are you? I said, General, I'm not coming. He said why.
Speaker 1: I said so, I tost me just I told him
Speaker 1: I could to understand what's is my situation. Hanan's Code
Speaker 1: is the name of an Egyptian actress. Both hananaka Shogi
Speaker 1: shared a love for Egyptian cinema and are very familiar
Speaker 1: with the star suart hostnik eat so what Hostne is
Speaker 1: often called the Cinderella of Egyptian cinema. In two thousand
Speaker 1: one swat host Ny fell from an apartment balcony in
Speaker 1: London and died. Many believed she had ties to Egyptian
Speaker 1: intelligence officials and that she was pushed from the balcony.
Speaker 1: So what host me was an nonced code word to
Speaker 1: indicate she didn't trust their line of communication. And he said,
Speaker 1: so I tost me. He understood, He said to Hannah
Speaker 1: and you, I would protect you. They kept changing ways
Speaker 1: of communicating in an effort not to get surveilled. They
Speaker 1: used all sorts of things at different times. So signal EMU,
Speaker 1: what's that? A couple other things. They came and went.
Speaker 1: After two months on house arrest, Hanan was released and
Speaker 1: got her passport back. She was back to work okay
Speaker 1: and went on a trip to the United States to
Speaker 1: meet Kashog. They had plans to get married. We got
Speaker 1: to marriage in June two thousand eighteen. They got married
Speaker 1: here in Washington where Jamal had a house an apartment
Speaker 1: in McLean, Virginia, and they were married in Islamics ceremony
Speaker 1: only in part to protect her and all. They didn't
Speaker 1: want to have any record in the civil courts that
Speaker 1: she even existed here in the United States. Hanan Kashi
Speaker 1: were married at a mosque, but they decided not to
Speaker 1: get a civil license as Hanan did not have residents
Speaker 1: in the US at the time. The summer of eighteen,
Speaker 1: Hannan tried to put her detention behind her. She was
Speaker 1: cautious but not paranoid. You think they are watching us
Speaker 1: in a hotel lobby or in our room, but she
Speaker 1: didn't move when we was in our room, Jamal unplug
Speaker 1: the TV. This is what is the highest conscience for
Speaker 1: him about buying or watching or something. Once I remember
Speaker 1: he was trying to understood open in my bubile in
Speaker 1: case I'm an our house in Virginia and his mother
Speaker 1: there and they need to go around for my shopping
Speaker 1: or something. He tried to install Uber and he was
Speaker 1: going to put his credit card to number. Then he
Speaker 1: deleted and they said why deleted German. He said, no,
Speaker 1: if they get the phone from you and Dubai Hannah,
Speaker 1: they can get get into my account. Hannan did not
Speaker 1: know what to do after Kashoki was murdered, and occasionally
Speaker 1: Amaradi intelligence officers will come by and ask questions, and
Speaker 1: then Jamal's killed and she has nowhere to go. She's
Speaker 1: frying for her life. She can't live in the U
Speaker 1: a e. Anymore, So she comes to the United States
Speaker 1: to talk to her lawyer, and her lawyers she just
Speaker 1: just stay here and we'll apply for political asylum. And
Speaker 1: so she is literally a forgotten woman. Here's this woman
Speaker 1: that has potentially so much evidence to share in her
Speaker 1: devices about Jamal's travels and who might have been tracking them,
Speaker 1: and who might have been complicit with the Saudias, and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, you know, what his travel plans were,
Speaker 1: what his other plans were, what he was thinking of doing,
Speaker 1: and nobody had ever contacted her. So I took your
Speaker 1: advices to a second group that does a lot of forensics,
Speaker 1: Citizen Lab. So we worked with Bill. I'm Bill Marzac,
Speaker 1: a senior research fellow at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.
Speaker 1: I study government surveillance, basically trying to determine which governments
Speaker 1: are hacking activists, dissidents, civil society and trying to defend
Speaker 1: civil society against this this hacking. Bill Marzac is one
Speaker 1: of the first people to discover Pegasus. He would need
Speaker 1: to look at Hanan's phone. Who when I've been approached
Speaker 1: first to cool from Washington post they asking me to corporate.
Speaker 1: The exciplent to me, is they need my devices? I
Speaker 1: did hand it over. Bill has experience reverse engineering Pegasus
Speaker 1: and knew exactly what to look for examining Hanan's phone.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much the only thing you can do when
Speaker 1: you get a sample of something that might be interesting
Speaker 1: spyware is you have to run it yourself and see
Speaker 1: what happens. And I was monitoring the phone's Internet traffic,
Speaker 1: so I was seeing everything that came into the phone
Speaker 1: that left the phone. When I was monitoring the Internet traffic,
Speaker 1: a bunch of weird traffic going to the spiral website
Speaker 1: like it was downloading stuff. It was uploading stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that was sort of the first key that Oh wow,
Speaker 1: so far as closed, but this connectivity is still happening
Speaker 1: and it's sending information back. Pegasus can bypass any encryption
Speaker 1: because it uses a loophole in a phone software to
Speaker 1: be an incognito but active parasite. When Pegasus is on
Speaker 1: a phone, Bill can see the evidence of it right away.
Speaker 1: You can turn on the microphone to snoop in on
Speaker 1: conversations happening around the device. You can take pictures through
Speaker 1: the webcam, you can get passwords, you can get WhatsApp messages,
Speaker 1: you can get signal messages, you can record calls, you
Speaker 1: can track GPS, you can do other things with the
Speaker 1: phone sensors. It was full access to the phone. And
Speaker 1: there was something else they knew from the types of
Speaker 1: text messages she had been sent, which had already been
Speaker 1: identified as Pegasus bait, that they had tried to target
Speaker 1: her uh several times. So why did the Emeraldi intelligence
Speaker 1: officers detain Hanan a ladder and question her overnight. It
Speaker 1: turns out they had been trying to trick Hanan into
Speaker 1: downloading Pegasus herself. She had received random texts in the
Speaker 1: months prior to her detention, but she never clicked on
Speaker 1: the links. The bait to get Hanan to infect her
Speaker 1: phone in two thousand eight teen were things like, you
Speaker 1: have a package downtown at this address, Click here and
Speaker 1: tell us that you want us to send it to you.
Speaker 1: There was a message from her sister saying, oh, here's
Speaker 1: a photo, click this to see the photo. And then
Speaker 1: there was one saying you have a bouquet of flowers
Speaker 1: waiting for you. Click this and we will get them
Speaker 1: to you. Then Dana priest had to tell her non
Speaker 1: the truth that she had spy wear on her phone,
Speaker 1: and that she'd had it since April, since the day
Speaker 1: she had been detained. When I recalled the moment this happened,
Speaker 1: I took and I feel like my life force in
Speaker 1: in a green affront of them. I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: people miss use this technology, the be able who humped
Speaker 1: my husband and humped me. The Hamaradi intelligence officials had
Speaker 1: full access to Hanan's phone every part of her life
Speaker 1: for five months before Koshoi was killed. No matter the
Speaker 1: steps Hanan had taken, the codes she had used, or
Speaker 1: the length she had gone to protect Koshoki, they could
Speaker 1: still watch her and they did. I was feeling very bad,
Speaker 1: and I'm still feeling very bad. Hanan is still trying
Speaker 1: to get Koshogis devices from the Turkish authorities. In addition
Speaker 1: to Hanana Lader, others close to Jamal Ka Shogi have
Speaker 1: also discovered Pegasus on their phones. Every detail of their
Speaker 1: digital footprint was surveiled, including Koshogi's Turkish fiance teacher sings
Speaker 1: I blamed myself a lot, and Kashogi's close friend Omar
Speaker 1: Abdulla ziz A fellow outspoken Saudi journalist living in exile
Speaker 1: in Canada. All of their correspondences were monitored. The hacken
Speaker 1: of my phone played the major role what happened to
Speaker 1: jama that. On the next episode of Shoot the Messenger,
Speaker 1: we find out how Omar Abduaziz found out he was
Speaker 1: being hacked and discovered more than four hundred of his
Speaker 1: text messages with Jamaica Shogi were compromised. We'll go into
Speaker 1: how this technology works and how Pegasus was first discovered.
Speaker 1: On this series, we investigate how Pegasus byware came to be,
Speaker 1: what its capabilities are, and ask how does it implicate
Speaker 1: ordinary people. Over the next nine episodes will follow the
Speaker 1: thread of Pegasus to understand how it was intended to
Speaker 1: be used, how it's abused, and the impact of its surveillance.
Speaker 1: Pegasus spyware has been a boom for the cyber surveillance
Speaker 1: industry and it's impacted the global economy. If you live
Speaker 1: in the US and have mutual funds or pension, your
Speaker 1: money could be supporting the organization that makes Pegasus spyware.
Speaker 1: You've heard about Jamaica Shogu, but there are so many
Speaker 1: others others who have been targeted and hacked, blackmailed, or
Speaker 1: humiliated who have been hunted and killed. Some of the
Speaker 1: names you may recognize, like Emmanuel mccron, the president of France,
Speaker 1: or Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. And then there
Speaker 1: are stories you haven't heard about. I know, I don't
Speaker 1: long her felt safe. Do you know if they got
Speaker 1: the information that they were looking for. I don't think
Speaker 1: they were looking for any information. I think it was
Speaker 1: a form of psychological warfare. I would get a phone
Speaker 1: call from someone, but never anyone on the end of
Speaker 1: the phone. They would try to track my GPS. It
Speaker 1: does seem like it's always your favorite people who are
Speaker 1: being hacked and followed. We have to be way more
Speaker 1: careful even about things like this. How do I know
Speaker 1: who you are? It's kind of like the nuclear era
Speaker 1: before there were nuclear arms treaties. Are you saying that
Speaker 1: you think these texts I'm getting are Pegasus? Do you
Speaker 1: think I'm being targeted? Oh? For sure? Now it don't
Speaker 1: makes sense that it's on season one of Shoot the Messenger.
Speaker 1: Shoot the Messenger is a production of Exile Content Studio.
Speaker 1: We are distributed by PRX, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 1: Rose Red with Nando Vila, Sabiniansen, Nora Kibness, Zak Kirsch,
Speaker 1: and Anna Isabel Octavio. Written by Me rose Red with
Speaker 1: story editing by Nando Vila, Danny Sadia, Jen Atschell, Zak Kirsch,
Speaker 1: and Rachel Ward. Production assistant by Avro Saspatis Andrea Zavaios,
Speaker 1: Jen Shipman, Stella Emmett and Aaron Reese. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Sonic Union and Gail and Matthew Reid. Sound design and
Speaker 1: mixing by Patti Kens Daniel Batista, Overseas audio at Exile
Speaker 1: Content Studio. Executive producers are myself rose Red with Nando Vila,
Speaker 1: Carmen Bradol, and Isaac Lee. For more information on the
Speaker 1: status of journal US and freedom of the press, visit
Speaker 1: the Committee to Protect Journalists at CPUJ dot org. To
Speaker 1: learn more about Exile and our other podcasts and films,
Speaker 1: visit Exile content dot com. The next episode is out now.
Speaker 1: Subscribe so you can hear every twist and turn of
Speaker 1: this ten part series. You can find Exiles, Shoot the Messenger,
Speaker 1: Espionage Murder, and Pegasus Spyware anywhere you get your podcasts.