London court rejects Saudi immunity in Pegasus hacking case

On Monday, the London High Court awarded Saudi satirist and human rights activist Ghanem Al-Masarir more than £3 million ($4.1 million USD) in damages. The court issued the ruling after finding compelling evidence that Al-Masarir’s phone had been hacked with government-grade spyware. Al-Masarir, a London-based comic whose popular YouTube channel criticizing Saudi Arabia earned millions of viewers, originally sued the Saudi government in 2019. He filed the lawsuit after claiming his phone was targeted in 2018 with Pegasus, a mobile spyware manufactured by NSO Group and sold exclusively to governments.

Saudi Arabia rebuffed Al-Masarir’s legal challenge by claiming it had state immunity—a legal doctrine protecting foreign states from prosecution. The Saudi government had successfully argued this defense in a previous legal case, where Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was accused of orchestrating the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Turkey. However, the London High Court rejected Saudi Arabia’s claim of state immunity in this instance. Following the court’s rejection of the immunity claim, Saudi Arabia took no further part in the litigation, according to Reuters, which first reported the ruling.

In his ruling, Justice Pushpinder Saini wrote: “There is a compelling basis for concluding that [al-Masarir’s] iPhones were hacked by Pegasus spyware which resulted in the exfiltration of data from those mobile phones”. The judge noted that the exfiltration—the unauthorized transfer of data—and the wider hacking were directed or authorised by the Saudi government or its agents. Justice Saini also found that the Saudi government was probably responsible for Al-Masarir’s physical assault. Al-Masarir was physically assaulted in London in 2018, around the same time his phone was targeted. He accused agents working for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of staging the physical attack, stating that the combined digital and physical targeting caused deep depression and ended his YouTube career.

It remains unclear whether Saudi Arabia will pay the damages or if the government plans to appeal the ruling. Spokespersons for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., and NSO Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment from TechCrunch.

Why it matters

The High Court’s rejection of state immunity in this case marks a significant departure from previous legal precedents. Specifically, it denies Saudi Arabia the same legal defense that successfully shielded its leadership from prosecution over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.