In July 2021, the Pegasus Project revealed that a Moroccan client of NSO Group selected the phone number of then Prime Minister of Belgium Charles Michel in 2019 for potential surveillance (Morocco denied this finding). The phone of his father, Belgian politician Louis Michel, was also selected for surveillance by the same client.
Based on Amnesty International’s Security lab analysis, the Pegasus Project also revealed the infection of the Belgian phone of Carine Kanimba, the daughter of the Rwandan opponent Paul Rusesabagina, hero of the film Hotel Rwanda. Suspected of being behind the targeting, the Rwandan authorities denied any involvement.
In September, Belgium’s intelligence agency (SGRS) officially confirmed the Pegasus Project findings. After France’s, it was the second intelligence agency to do so. The SGRS also drew up a list of probable victims and found that the phones of Belgium journalist Peter Verlinden and his wife Marie Bamutese had been targeted with Pegasus, likely on the initiative of Rwanda, Belgian media Le Soir and Knack revealed as part of the Pegasus Project.
In November, Le Monde, Knack and Le Soir reported that Saharan activist Mahjoub Mleiha was a victim of Pegasus on Belgian soil and that he intended to file a complaint in Belgium (according to our information, the complaint has not yet been filed).
In a New Yorker investigation from April 2022, NSO Group co-founder Shalev Hulio said that Belgian law enforcement uses Pegasus but “won’t admit it” (in response to the allegations, the Belgian federal police said it respected “a legal framework as to the use of intrusive methods in private life”). One day later, Belgian newspaper De Standaard reported that the Belgian federal police used Pegasus in some investigations (the federal police declined to comment).
Just one year after the publication of Project Pegasus, the consortium coordinated by Forbidden Stories revealed the infection of another close relative of Paul Rusesabagina, his nephew Jean-Paul Nsonzrumpa, who lives in Belgium. According to the analyses conducted by Citizen Lab, his phone was infected several times in October and November 2020.